BROWNING 



VOLUMES IN THIS SERIES 



PUBUSHED AND IN PREPARATION 



EDITED BY WILL D. HOWE 



Browning, 


By William Lyon Phelps 


Carlyle, . 


By Bliss Perry 


Hawthorne, 


By George E. Woodberry 


Emerson, 


By Samuel McChord Crothers 


Wordsworth, . 


. By C. T. Winchester 


Byron, 


By Paul Elmer More 


Dickens, . 


By Richard Burton 


Whitman, 


By Brand Whitlock 


Defoe, . 


. By William P. Trent 


Lowell, . 


By John H. Finley 




Etc., Etc. 




Robert Browxixo 



ROBERT BROWNING 

HOW TO KNOW HIM 



By 
WILLIAM LYON PHELPS, M. A., Ph. D. 

Lampson Professor of English Literature at Yale 



WITH PORTRAIT 



£33 



INDIANAPOLIS 

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



Copyright 1915 
The Bobbs-Merrill Company 



TK'^ 









PRESS OF 

BRAUNWORTH & CO. 

BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS 

BROOKLYN, N. Y. 

» 

SEP 15 1915 

^CI.A410484 



TO 

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

WITH SINCERE AFFECTION AND 

RESPECT 



PREFACE 

In this volume I have attempted to give an ac- 
count of Browning's life and an estimation of his 
character: to set forth, with sufficient illustration 
from his poems, his theory of poetry, his aim and 
method : to make clear some of the leading ideas in 
his work : to show his fondness for paradox : to ex- 
hibit the nature and basis of his optimism. I have 
given in complete form over fifty of his poems, each 
one preceded by my interpretation of its meaning 
and significance. W. L. P. 

Seven Gabels, Lake Huron 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I The Man 1 

II Browning's Theory OF Poetry ... 34 

III Lyrics 71 

IV Dramatic Lyrics 96 

V Dramatic Monologues 169 

VI Poems of Paradox 245 

VII Browning's Optimism 294 

Index 377 



LIST OF POEMS 



PAGE 

AbtVogler 353 

Andrea del Sarto 208 

Apparent Failure . . 361 

Bad Dreams 168 

Bishop Orders His Tomb, The 195 

Caliban Upon Setebos 331 

Cavalier Tunes Ill 

"Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" . . . 237 

Confessions 164 

Count Gismond 179 

Cristina 125 

Epilogue to Asolando 2i7Z 

Epilogue to Fifine at the Fair 89 

Epistle (An) Containing the Strange Medical Ex- 
perience OF Karshish 222 

Evelyn Hope 130 

Eyes Calm Beside Thee 75 

Face, A 87 

Glove, The 250 

Grammarian's Funeral, A 262 

Guardian-Angel, The 324 

Home-Thoughts, from Abroad 85 

Home-Thoughts, from the Sea 85 

How It Strikes a Contemporary 54 

"How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to 

Aix" 191 

James Lee's Wife (two stanzas from) .... 86 

Johannes Agricola in Meditation . . . . . 108 

Laboratory, The 201 

Last Ride Together, The 150 

Lost Leader, The 114 

Lost Mistress, The 149 

Love Among the Ruins 158 

Meeting at Night 140 

My Last Duchess 175 



LIST OF FOEUS— Continued 

PAGE 

My Star . 167 

Never the Time and the Place 94 

One Way of Love 149 

One Word More 15 

Over the Sea Our Galleys Went 128 

Parting at Morning 140 

Porphyria's Lover 104 

Prologue to Asolando 370 

Prologue to Jocoseria 94 

Prologue to La Saisiaz 93 

Prologue to Pacchiarotto 92 

Prologue to The Two Poets of Croisic .... 91 

Prospice 359 

Rabbi Ben Ezra 344 

Rephan 365 

Respectability 162 

Saul 303 

SiBRANDus Schafnaburgensis 259 

Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister 187 

Song from A Blot in the 'Scutcheon .... 83 

Songs from Paracelsus :•: 76 

Songs from Pippa Passes 81 

Statue (The) and the Bust ^, . 277 

summum bonum 168 

"Transcendentalism" 52 

Up at a Villa — Down in the City 269 

Which? 293 



BROWNING 



i 



BROWNING 



THE MAN 

IF we enter this world from some other state of 
existence, it seems certain that in the obscure 
pre-natal country, the power of free choice — so 
stormily debated by philosophers and theologians 
here — does not exist. Millions of earth's infants are 
handicapped at the start by having parents who lack 
health, money, brains, and character; and in many 
cases the environment is no better than the ancestry. 
"God plants us where we grow," said Pompilia, and 
we can not save the rose by placing it on the tree- 
top. Robert Browning, who was perhaps the hap- 
piest man in the nineteenth century, was particularly 
fortunate in his advent. Of the entire population of 
the planet in the year of grace 1812, he could hardly 
have selected a better father and mother than were 
chosen for him ; and the place of his birth was just 

1 



2 BROWNING 

what it should have been, the biggest town on earth. 
All his life long he was emphatically a city man, 
dwelling in London, Florence, Paris, and Venice, 
never remaining long in rural surroundings. 

Browning was born on May 7, 1812, in South- 
ampton Street, Camberwell, London, a suburb on 
the southern side of the river. One hundred years 
later, as I traversed the length of this street, it 
looked squalid in the rain, and is indeed sufficiently 
unlovely. But in 1812 it was a good residential lo- 
cality, and not far away were fresh woods and pas- 
tures. . . . Thegoodhealthof Browning's father may 
be inferred from the fact that he lived to be eighty- 
four, "without a day's illness;" he was a practical, 
successful business man, an official in the Bank of 
England. His love of literature and the arts is 
proved by the fact that he practised them con- 
stantly for the pure joy of the working; he wrote 
reams and reams of verse, without publishing a line. 
He had extraordinary facility in composition, being 
able to write poetry even faster than his son. Ros- 
setti said that he had "a real genius for drawing." 
He owned a large and valuable library, filled with 
curiosities of literature. Robert was brought up 
among books, even in earliest youth turning over 
many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore. 



THE MAN 3 

His latest biographers have shown the powerful and 
permanent effects on his poetry of this early reading. 

Browning's father — while not a rich man — had 
sufficient income to give his son every possible ad- 
vantage in physical and intellectual training, and 
to enable him to live without earning a cent; 
after Robert grew up, he was absolutely free 
to devote his entire time and energy to writing 
poetry, which, even to the day of his death, 
did not yield a livelihood. The young poet 
was free from care, free from responsibility, and 
able from childhood to old age to bring out the 
best that was in him. A curious and exact par- 
allel is found in the case of the great pessimist, 
Schopenhauer, who never ceased to be grateful to 
his father for making his whole life-work possible. 
In his later years. Browning wrote : "It would have 
been quite unpardonable in any case not to have done 
my best. My dear father put me in a condition most 
favourable for the best work I was capable o f . When 
I think of the many authors who had to fight their 
way through all sorts of difficulties I have no rea- 
son to be proud of my achievements." 

Browning's mother, whom he loved with pas- 
sionate adoration, was a healthy and sensible 
woman; better than all these gifts, she was <ieeply 



4 BROWNING 

religious, with sincere and unaffected piety. She 
was a Dissenter, a Congregationalist, and brought 
up Robert in the nurture and admonition of the 
Lord, herself a noble example of her teachings. 
This evangelical training had an incalculably strong 
influence on the spirit of Browning's poetry. She 
loved music ardently, and when Robert was a boy, 
used to play the piano to him in the twilight. He 
always said that he got his devotion to music from 
her. 

In these days, when there is such a strong re- 
action everywhere against the elective system in 
education, it is interesting to remember that Brown- 
ing's education was simply the elective system 
pushed to its last possibility. It is perhaps safe to 
say that no learned man in modern times ever had 
so little of school and college. His education de- 
pended absolutely and exclusively on his inclina- 
tions; he was encouraged to study anything he 
wished. His father granted him perfect liberty, 
never sent him to any "institution of learning," and 
allowed him to do exactly as he chose, simply pro- 
viding competent private instruction in whatever sub- 
ject the youth expressed any interest. Thus he learned 
Greek, Latin, the modern languages, music (har- 
mony and counterpoint, as well as piano and organ) , 



THE MAN 5 

chemistry (a private laboratory was fitted up in the 
house) , history and art. Now every one knows that 
so far as definite acquisition of knowledge is con- 
cerned, our schools and colleges — at least in America 
— leave much to be desired ; our boys and girls study 
the classics for years without being able to read a 
page at sight; and the modern languages show a 
similarly meagre harvest. If one wishes positive 
and practical results one must employ a private 
tutor, or work alone in secret. The great advan- 
tages of our schools and colleges — except in so far 
as they inspire intellectual curiosity — are not pri- 
marily of a scholarly nature; their strength lies in 
other directions. The result of Browning's educa- 
tion was that at the age of twenty he knew more 
than most college graduates ever know; and his 
knowledge was at his full command. His favorite 
reading on the train, for example, was a Greek play ; 
one of the reasons why his poetry sometimes 
seems so pedantic is simply because he never realised 
how ignorant most of us really are. I suppose he 
did not believe that men could pass years in school 
and university training and know so little. Yet the 
truth is, that most boys, brought up as Browning 
was, would be utterly unfitted for the active duties 
and struggles of life, and indeed for the amenities 



6 , BROWNING 

of social intercourse. With ninety-nine out of a 
hundred, such an education, so far as it made for 
either happiness or efficiency, would be a failure. 
But Browning was the hundredth man. He was 
profoundly learned without pedantry and without 
conceit ; and he was primarily a social being. 

His physical training was not neglected. The boy 
had expert private instruction in fencing, boxing, 
and riding. He was at ease on the back of a spirited 
horse. He was particularly fond of dancing, which 
later aroused the wonder of Elizabeth Barrett, who 
found it difficult to imagine the author of Para- 
celsus dancing the polka. 

In 1833 appeared Browning's first poem, Pauline, 
which had been completed before he was twenty-one 
years old. His aunt, Mrs. Silverthorne, gave him 
one hundred and fifty dollars, which paid the ex- 
penses of publication. Not a single copy was sold, 
and the unbound sheets came home to roost. The 
commercial worth of Pauline was exactly zero; to- 
day it is said that only five copies exist. One was 
sold recently for two thousand four hundred dollars. 

In 1834 Browning visited Russia, going by 
steamer to Rotterdam, and then driving fifteen hun- 
dred miles with horses. Although he was in Russia 
about three months, and at the most sensitive time 



THE MAN Z 

of life, the country made surprisingly little im- 
pression upon him, or at least upon his poetry. The 
dramatic idyl, Ivan Ivanovitch, is practically the 
only literary result of this journey. It was the 
south, and not the north, that was to be the in- 
spiration of Browning. 

He published his second poem, Paracelsus, in 
1835. Although this attracted no general atten- 
tion, and had no sale, it was enthusiastically re- 
viewed by John Forster, who declared that its au- 
thor was a man of genius. The most fortunate re- 
sult of its appearance was that it brought Browning 
within the pale of literary society, and gave him the 
friendship of some of the leading men in London. 
The great actor Macready was charmed with the 
poem, and young Browning haunted Macready's 
dressing-room at the theatre for years; but their 
friendship ceased in 1843 when A Blot in the 
'Scutcheon was acted. Browning wrote four plays 
for Macready, two of which were accepted. 

Although Browning late in life remarked in a 
casual conversation that he had visited Italy in 
1834, he must have been mistaken, for it is impossi- 
ble to find any record of such a journey. To the 
best of our knowledge, he first saw the land of his 
inspiration in 1838, sailing from London on April 



8 BROWNING 

13th, passing through the Straits of Gibraltar on the 
twenty-ninth, and reaching Trieste on May 30th. On 
the first of June he entered Venice. It was on a 
walking-trip that he first saw the village of Asolo, 
about thirty miles to the northeast of Venice. Little 
did he then realise how closely his name would be 
forever associated with this tiny town. The scenes of 
Pip pa Passes he located there : the last summer of 
his life, in 1889, was spent in Asolo, his last volume 
he named in memory of the village; and on the one 
hundredth anniversary of his birth, the street where 
he lived and wrote in 1889 was formally named Via 
Roberto Browning. His son, Robert Barrett Brown- 
ing, lived to see this event, and died at Asolo on 
July 8, 1912. 

The long and obscure poem Sordello was pub- 
lished in 1840; and then for thirty years Browning 
produced poetry of the highest order: poetry that 
shows scarcely any obscurity, and that in lyric and 
dramatic power has given its author a fixed place 
among the greatest names in English literature. 

The story of the marriage and married life of 
Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning is one of 
the greatest love stories in the world's history; 
their love-letters reveal a drama of noble passion 
that excels in beauty and intensity the universally 



THE MAN 9 

popular examples of Heloise and Abelard, Aucassin 
and Nicolette, Paul and Virginia. There was a 
mysterious bond between them long before the per- 
sonal acquaintance : each admired the other's poetry. 
Miss Barrett had a picture of Browning in her sick- 
room, and declared that the adverse criticism con- 
stantly directed against his verse hurt her like a 
lash across her own back. In a new volume of 
poems, she made a complimentary reference to his 
work, and in January, 1845, he wrote her a letter 
properly beginning with the two words, "I love." 
It was her verses that he loved, and said so. In 
May he saw her and illustrated his own doctrine by 
falling in love with her at first sight. She was in 
her fortieth year, and an invalid; but if any one is 
surprised at the passion she aroused in the hand- 
some young poet, six years her junior, one has only 
to read her letters. She was a charming woman, 
feminine from her soul to her finger-tips, the incar- 
nation of das Ewigweibliche. Her intimate friends 
were mostly what were then known as strong- 
minded women — I suppose to-day they would seem 
like timid, shy violets. She was modest, gentle, 
winsome, irresistible : profoundly learned, with the 
eager heart of a child. 
Wimpole Street in London, "the long, unlovely 



10 BROWNING 

street," as Tennyson calls it, is holy ground to the 
lover of literature : for at Number 67 lived Arthur 
Henry Hallam, and diagonally opposite, at Num- 
ber 50, lived Elizabeth Barrett. This street — ut- 
terly commonplace in appearance — is forever asso- 
ciated with the names of our two great Victorian 
poets : and the association with Tennyson is Death : 
with Browning, Love. 

Not only was Elizabeth believed to be a hopeless 
invalid, but her father had forbidden any of his 
children to marry. He was a religious man, 
whose motto in his own household was apparently 
"Thou shalt have no other gods before me." He 
had the particular kind of piety that is most offen- 
sive to ordinary humanity. He gave his children, 
for whom he had a stern and savage passion, every- 
thing except what they wanted. He had an insane 
jealousy of any possible lover, and there is no doubt 
that he would have preferred to attend the funeral 
of any one of his children rather than a marriage. 
But Browning's triumphant love knew no obstacles, 
and he persuaded Elizabeth Barrett to run away 
with him. They were married in September, 1846, 
and shortly after left for Italy. Her father re- 
fused to see either of them in subsequent years, and 
returned his daughter's letters unopened. Is there 
anv cause in nature for these hard hearts? 



THE MAN 11 

Browning*s faith wrought a miracle. Instead of 
dying on the journey to Italy, Mrs. Browning got 
well, and the two lived together in unclouded happi- 
ness for fifteen years, until 1861, when she 
died in his arms. Not a scrap of writing passed 
between them from the day of her marriage to the 
day of her death: for they were never separated. 
She said that all a woman needed to be perfectly 
happy was three things — Life, Love, Italy — and she 
had all three. 

The relations between Elizabeth Barrett and 
Robert Browning had all the wonder and beauty of 
a mediaeval romance, with the notable addition of 
being historically true. The familiar story of a 
damosel imprisoned in a gloomy dungeon, guarded 
by a cruel dragon — and then, when all her hope had 
vanished, rescued by the sudden appearance of the 
brilliant knight, who carried her away from her 
dull prison to a land of sunshine and happiness — 
this became the literal experience of Elizabeth Bar- 
rett. Her love for her husband was the passionate 
love of a woman for a man, glorified by adoration 
for the champion who had miraculously trans- 
formed her life from the depths of despair to the 
topmost heights of joy. He came, "pouring heaven 
into this shut house of life." She expressed the 



12 BROWNING 

daily surprise of her happiness in her Sonnets, which 
one day she put shyly into his hands : 

I thought once how Theocritus had sung 

Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years, 

Who each one in a gracious hand appears 

To bear a gift for mortals, old or young : 

And, as I mused it in his antique tongue, 

I saw, in gradual vision through my tears, 

The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years. 

Those of my own life, who by turns had flung 

A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware. 

So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move 

Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair ; 

And a voice said in mastery while I strove, . . . 

"Guess now who holds thee ?"— "Death 1" I said. But, 

there. 
The silver answer rang . . . "Not Death, but Love." 

My own Beloved, who hast lifted me 
From this drear flat of earth where I was thrown, 
And in betwixt the languid ringlets, blown 
A life-breath, till the forehead hopefully 
Shines out again, as all the angels see. 
Before thy saving kiss ! My own, my own. 
Who camest to me when the world was gone. 
And I who looked for only God, found thee! 
I find thee : I am safe, and strong, and glad. 
As one who stands in dewless asphodel 
Looks backward on the tedious time he had 
In the upper life ... so I, with bosom-swell. 
Make witness here between the good and bad, 
That Love, as strong as Death, retrieves as well. 



THE MAN 13 

Browning replied to this wonderful tribute by 
appending to the fifty poems published in 1855 his 
One Word More. He wrote this in a metre differ- 
ent from any he had ever used, for he meant the 
poem to be unique in his works, a personal expres- 
sion of his love. He remarked that Rafael wrote 
sonnets, that Dante painted a picture, each man go- 
ing outside the sphere of his genius to please the 
woman he loved, to give her something entirely 
apart from his gifts to the world. He wished that 
he could do something other than poetry for his 
wife, and in the next life he believed that it would 
be possible. But here God had given him only one 
gift — verse: he must therefore present her with a 
specimen of the only art he could command; but it 
should be utterly unlike all his other poems, for 
they were dramatic; here just once, and for one 
woman only, he would step out from behind the 
scenes, and address her directly in his own person. 

Of course Browning could have modelled a statue, 
or written a piece of music for Elizabeth, for in 
both of these arts he had attained moderate pro- 
ficiency : but he wished not only to make a gift just 
for her, but to give it to her in public, with the 
whole world regarding; therefore it must be of his 
best. 



14 BROWNING 

He calls her his moon of poets. He reminds her 
how a few days ago, they had seen the crescent 
moon in Florence, how they had seen it nightly 
waxing until it lamped the fagade of San Miniato, 
while the nightingales, in ecstasy among the cypress 
trees, gave full-throated applause. Then they had 
travelled together to London, and now saw the same 
dispirited moon, saving up her silver parsimoniously, 
sink in gibbous meanness behind the chimney-tops. 

The notable thing about the moon is that whereas 
the earth, during one revolution about the sun, turns 
on its own axis three hundred and sixty-five times, 
the shy moon takes exactly the same length of time 
to turn around as she takes to circle once around the 
earth. For this reason, earth's inhabitants have 
never seen but one side of the moon, and never will. 
Elizabeth Browning is his moon, because she shows 
the other side to him alone. The radiant splendor 
of her poetry fills the whole earth with light; but to 
her husband she shows the other side, the lov- 
ing, domestic woman, the unspeakably precious and 
intimate associate of his daily life. The world 
thinks it knows her; but it has seen only one side; 
it knows nothing of the marvellous depth and purity 
of her real nature. 



THE MAN 15 

ONE WORD MORE 

TO E. B. B. 

1855 

I 

There they are, my fifty men and women 
Naming me the fifty poems finished ! 
Take them, Love, the book and me together: 
Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also. 

II 

Rafael made a century of sonnets, 

Made and wrote them in a certain volume 

Dinted with the silver-pointed pencil 

Else he only used to draw Madonnas : 

These, the world might view — but one, the volume. 

Who that one, you ask ? Your heart instructs you. 

Did she live and love it all her life-time? 

Did she drop, his lady of the sonnets, 

Die, and let it drop beside her pillow 

Where it lay in place of Rafael's glory, 

Rafael's cheek so duteous and so loving — 

Cheek, the world was wont to hail a painter's, 

Rafael's cheek, her love had turned a poet's? 

Ill 

You and I would rather read that volume, 
(Taken to his beating bosom by it) 
Lean and list the bosom-beats of Rafael, 
Would we not? than wonder at Madonnas— 
Her, San Sisto names, and Her, Foligno, 
Her, that visits Florence in a vision. 
Her, that's left with lilies in the Louvre — 
Seen by us and all the world in circle. 



16 BROWNING 

IV 

You and I will never read that volume. 

Guido Reni, like his own eye's apple 

Guarded long the treasure-book and loved it. 

Guido Reni dying, all Bologna 

Cried, and the world cried too, "Ours, the treasure!' 

Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished. 



Dante once prepared to paint an angel : 
Whom to please? You whisper "Beatrice." 
While he mused and traced it and retraced it, 
(Peradventure with a pen corroded 
Still by drops of that hot ink he dipped for, 
When, his left-hand i' the hair o' the wicked, 
Back he held the brow and pricked its stigma, 
Bit into the live man's flesh for parchment, 
Loosed him, laughed to see the writing rankle, 
Let the wretch go festering through Florence) — 
Dante, who loved well because he hated, 
Hated wickedness that hinders loving, 
Dante standing, studying his angel, — 
In there broke the folk of his Inferno. 
Says he — "Certain people of importance" 
(Such he gave his daily dreadful line to) 
"Entered and would seize, forsooth, the poet." 
Says the poet — "Then I stopped my painting." 



VI 



You and I would rather see that angel, 
Painted by the tenderness of Dante, 
Would we not?— than read a fresh Inferno. 



THE MAN 17 

VII 

You and I will never see that picture. 
While he mused on love and Beatrice, 
While he softened o'er his outlined angel, 
In they broke, those "people of importance": 
We and Bice bear the loss for ever. 

VIII 

What of Rafael's sonnets, Dante's picture ? 

This : no artist lives and loves, that longs not 

Once, and only once, and for one only, 

(Ah, the prize!) to find his love a language 

Fit and fair and simple and sufficient — 

Using nature that's an art to others, 

Not, this one time, art that's turned his nature. 

Ay, of all the artists living, loving, 

None but would forego his proper dowry, — 

Does he paint? he fain would write a poem, — 

Does he write? he fain would paint a picture, 

Put to proof art alien to the artist's. 

Once, and only once, and for one only, 

So to be the man and leave the artist. 

Gain the man's joy, miss the artist's sorrow. 

IX 

Wherefore? Heaven's gift takes earth's abatement I 

He who smites the rock and spreads the water, 

Bidding drink and live a crowd beneath him. 

Even he, the minute makes immortal. 

Proves, perchance, but mortal in the minute, 

Desecrates, belike, the deed in doing. 

While he smites, how can he but remember. 

So he smote before, in such a peril, 

When they stood and mocked — "Shall smiting help us?" 



18 BROWNING 

When they drank and sneered — "A stroke is easy !" 
When they wiped their mouths and went their journey, 
Throwing him for thanks — "But drought was pleasant" 
Thus old memories mar the actual triumph ; 
Thus the doing savours of disrelish ; 
Thus achievement lacks a gracious somewhat; 
O'er-importuned brows becloud the mandate, 
Carelessness or consciousness — the gesture. 
For he bears an ancient wrong about him, 
Sees and knows again those phalanxed faces, 
Hears, yet one time more, the 'customed prelude — 
"How shouldst thou, of all men, smite, and save us ?" 
Guesses what is like to prove the sequel — 
"Egypt's flesh-pots — nay, the drought was better." 



Oh, the crowd must have emphatic warrant ! 
Theirs, the Sinai-forehead's cloven brilliance. 
Right-arm's rod-sweep, tongue's imperial fiat. 
Never dares the man put off the prophet. 

XI 

Did he love one face from out the thousands, 
(Were she Jethro's daughter, white and wifely. 
Were she but the -Ethiopian bondslave,) 
He would envy yon dumb patient camel, 
Keeping a reserve of scanty water 
Meant to save his own life in the desert; 
Ready in the desert to deliver 
(Kneeling down to let his breast be opened) 
Hoard and life together for his mistress. 

XII 

I shall never, in the years remaining. 

Paint you pictures, no, nor carve you statues. 



THE MAN 19 

Make you music that should all-express me ; 

So it seems : I stand on my attainment 

This of verse alone, one life allows me; 

Verse and nothing else have I to give you. 

Other heights in other lives, God willing : 

All the gifts from all the heights, your own, Love I 

XIII 

Yet a semblance of resource avails us — 

Shade so finely touched, love's sense must seize it. 

Take these lines, look lovingly and nearly. 

Lines I write the first time and the last time. 

He who works in fresco, steals a hair-brush. 

Curbs the liberal hand, subservient proudly, 

Cramps his spirit, crowds its all in little, 

Makes a strange art of an art familiar. 

Fills his lady's missal-marge with flowerets. 

He who blows thro' bronze, may breathe thro* silver, 

Fitly serenade a slumbrous princess. 

He who writes, may write for once as I do. 

XIV 

Love, you saw me gather men and women, 
Live or dead or fashioned by my fancy. 
Enter each and all, and use their service. 
Speak from every mouth, — the speech, a poem; 
Hardly shall I tell my joys and sorrows, 
Hopes and fears, belief and disbelieving: 
I am mine and yours — the rest be all men's, 
Karshish, Cleon, Norbert and the fifty. 
Let me speak this once in my true person. 
Not as Lippo, Roland or Andrea, 
Though the fruit of speech be just this sentence: 
Pray you, look on these my men and women. 
Take and keep my fifty poems finished ; 



20 BROWNING 

Where my heart lies, let my brain He also ! 
Poor the speech ; be how I speak, for all things. 

XV 

Not but that you know me 1 Lo, the moon's self I 
Here in London, yonder late in Florence, 
Still we find her face, the thrice-transfigured. 
Curving on a sky imbrued with colour, 
Drifted over Fiesole by twiHght, 
Came she, our new crescent of a hair*s-breadth. 
Full she flared it, lamping Samminiato, 
Rounder 'twixt the cypresses and rounder, 
Perfect till the nightingales applauded. 
Now, a piece of her old self, impoverished. 
Hard to greet, she traverses the houseroofs, 
Hurries with unhandsome thrift of silver, 
Goes dispiritedly, glad to finish. 

XVI 

What, there's nothing in the moon noteworthy? 
Nay : for if that moon could love a mortal. 
Use, to charm him (so to fit a fancy). 
All her magic ('tis the old sweet mythos) 
She would turn a new side to her mortal, 
Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman — 
Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace, 
Blind to Galileo on his turret, 
Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats — him, even I 
Think, the wonder of the moonstruck mortal — • 
When she turns round, comes again in heaven, 
Opens out anew for worse or better I 
Proves she like some portent of an iceberg 
Swimming full upon the ship it founders, 
Hungry with huge teeth of splintered crystals? 
Proves she as the paved work of a sapphire 



THE MAN 21 

Seen by Moses when he cHmbed the mountain? 

Moses, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu 

Climbed and saw the very God, the Highest, 

Stand upon the paved work of a sapphire. 

Like the bodied heaven in his clearness 

Shone the stone, the sapphire of that paved work, 

When they ate and drank and saw God also 1 

XVII 

What were seen ? None knows, none ever shall know. 

Only this is sure — the sight were other. 

Not the moon's same side, born late in Florence, 

Dying now impoverished here in London. 

God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures 

Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with, 

One to show a woman when he loves her 1 

XVIII 

This I say of me, but think of you. Love ! 

This to you — yourself my moon of poets ! 

Ah, but that's the world's side, there's the wonder. 

Thus they see you, praise you, think they know you ! 

There, in turn I stand with them and praise you — 

Out of my own self, I dare to phrase it. 

But the best is when I glide from out them. 

Cross a step or two of dubious twilight, 

Come out on the other side, the novel 

Silent silver lights and darks undreamed of, 

Where I hush and bless myself with silence. 

XIX 

Oh, their Rafael of the dear Madonnas, 
Oh, their Dante of the dread Inferno, 
Wrote one song — and in my brain I sing it, 
Drew one angel — ^bornc, see, on my bosom! 

R. B. 



22 BROWNING 

The Brownings travelled a good deal: they vis- 
ited many places in Italy, Venice, Ancona, Fano, 
Siena, and spent several winters in Rome. The 
winter of 1851-52 was passed at Paris, where on 
the third of January Browning wrote one of his 
most notable poems, Child e Roland to the Dark 
Tower Came. One memorable evening at London 
in 1855 there were gathered together in an upper 
room Mr. and Mrs. Browning, Mr. and Mrs. Ten- 
nyson, Dante and William Rossetti. Tennyson had 
just published Maud and Browning the two volumes 
called Men and Women. Each poet was invited to 
read from his new work. Tennyson, with one leg 
curled under him on the sofa, chanted Maud, the 
tears running down his cheeks ; and then Browning 
read in a conversational manner his characteristic 
poem, Fra Lippo Lippi. Rossetti made a pen-and- 
ink sketch of the Laureate while he was intoning. 
On one of the journeys made by the Brownings 
from London to Paris they were accompanied by 
Thomas Carlyle, who wrote a vivid and charming 
account of the transit. The poet was the practical 
member of the party : the "brave Browning" strug- 
gled with the baggage, and the customs, and the 
train arrangements; while the Scot philosopher 
smoked infinite tobacco. 



THE MAN 23 

The best account of the domestic life of the 
Brownings at Casa Guidi in Florence was written 
by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and published in his Ital- 
ian Note-Books. On a June evening, Mr. and Mrs. 
Browning, William Cullen Bryant, and Nathaniel 
Hawthorne ate strawberries and talked spiritualism. 
Hawthorne and Browning stood on the little bal- 
cony overlooking the street, and heard the priests 
chanting in the church of San Felice, the chant heard 
only in June, which Browning was to hear again 
on the night of the June day when he found the old 
yellow book. Both chant and terrace were to be 
immortalised in Browning's epic. Hawthorne said 
that Browning had an elfin wife and an elf child. 
"I wonder whether he will ever grow up, whether 
it is desirable that he should." Like all visitors at 
Casa Guidi, the American was impressed by the ex- 
traordinary sweetness, gentleness, and charity of 
Elizabeth Browning, and by the energy, vivacity, 
and conversational powers of her husband. Haw- 
thorne said he seemed to be in all parts of the room 
at once. 

Mr. Barrett Browning told me in 1904 that he 
remembered his mother, Elizabeth Barrett Brown- 
ing, as clearly as though he had seen her yesterday. 
He was eleven years old at the time of her death. 



24 BROWNING 

He would have it that her ill health had been 
greatly exaggerated. She was an invalid, but did 
not give the impression of being one. She was able 
to do many things, and had considerable power of 
endurance. One day in Florence she walked from 
her home out through the Porta Romana, clear up 
on the heights, and back to Casa Guidi. "That was 
pretty good, wasn't it?" said he. She was of course 
the idol of the household, and everything revolved 
about her. She was "intensely loved'' by all her 
friends. Her father was a "very peculiar man." 
The son's account of her health differs radically 
from that written by the mother of E. C. Stedman, 
who said that Mrs. Browning was kept alive only 
by opium, which she had to take daily. This writer 
added, however, that in spite of Mrs. Browning's 
wretched health, she had never heard her speak ill 
of any one, though she talked with her many times. 
After the death of his wife. Browning never saw 
Florence again. He lived in London, and after a 
few years was constantly seen in society. Tenny- 
son, who hated society, said that Browning would 
die in a dress suit. His real fame did not begin 
until the year 1864, with the publication of Dramatis 
PersoncB. During the first thirty years of his career, 
from the publication of Pauline in 1833 to the ap- 



THE MAN 25 

J)earance of Dramatis PersoncB, he received always 
tribute from the few, and neglect, seasoned with 
ridicule, from the many. Pauline, Paracelsus, Pippa 
Passes, A Blot in the 'Scutcheon, Christmas-Eve, 
Men and Women — each of these volumes was 
greeted enthusiastically by men and women whose 
own literary fame is permanent. But the world 
knew him not. How utterly obscure he was may 
be seen by the fact that so late as 1860, when the 
publisher's statement came in for Men and Women, 
it appeared that during the preceding six months 
not a single copy had been sold ! The best was yet 
to be. The Dramatis Personce was the first of his 
books to go into a genuine second edition. Then 
four years later came The Ring and the Book, which 
a contemporary review pronounced to be the "most 
precious and profound spiritual treasure which Eng- 
land has received since the days of Shakespeare." 
Fame, which had shunned him for thirty years, 
came to him in extraordinary measure during the 
last part of his life : another exact parallel between 
him and the great pessimist Schopenhauer. It was 
naturally sweet, its sweetness lessened only by the 
thought that his wife had not lived to see it. Each 
had always believed in the superiority of the other: 
and the only cloud in Mrs. Browning's mind was 



26 BROWNING 

the (to her) incomprehensible neglect of her hus- 
band by the public. At the time of the marriage, it 
was commonly said that a young literary man had 
eloped with a great poetess: during their married 
life, her books went invariably into many editions, 
while his did not sell at all. And even to the last 
day of Browning's earthly existence, her poems far 
outsold his, to his tmspeakable delight. "The de- 
mand for my poems is nothing like so large,'' he 
wrote cheerfully, in correcting a contrary opinion 
that had been printed. Even so late as 1885, 1 found 
this passage in an account of Mrs. Browning's life, 
published that year. It appears that "she was mar- 
ried in 1846 to Robert Browning, who was also a 
poet and dramatic writer of some note, though his 
fame seems to have been almost totally eclipsed by 
the superior endowments of his gifted wife." This 
reminds us of the time when Mr. and Mrs. Schu- 
mann were presented to a Scandinavian King : Mrs. 
Schumann played on the piano, and His Majesty, 
turning graciously to the silent husband, enquired 
"Are you also musical ?" 

The last summer of Browning's life, the summer 
of 1889, was passed at Asolo: in the autumn he 
moved into his beautiful house in Venice, the Pa- 
lazzo Rezzonico, which had the finest situation of 



THE MAN 27. 

all Venetian residences, built at an angle in the 
Grand Canal. Although seventy-seven years old, 
he was apparently as vigorous as ever: no change 
had taken place in his appearance, manner or habits. 
One day he caught a bad cold walking on the Lido 
in a bitter wind ; and with his usual vehement energy 
declined to take any proper care of his throat. In- 
stead of staying in, he set out for long tramps with 
friends, constantly talking in the raw autumn air. 
In order to prove to his son that nothing was the 
matter with him, he ran rapidly up three flights of 
stairs, the son vainly trying to restrain him. Noth- 
ing is more characteristic of the youthful folly of 
aged folk than their impatient resentment of prof- 
fered hygienic advice. When we are children, we 
reject with scorn the suggestions of our parents; 
when we are old, we reject with equal scorn the ad- 
vice of our children. Man is apparently an animal 
more fit to give advice than to take it. Browning's 
impulsive rashness proved fatal. Bronchitis with 
heart trouble finally sent him to bed, though on the 
last afternoon of his life he rose and walked about 
the room. During the last few days he told many 
good stories and talked with his accustomed eager- 
ness. He died at ten o'clock in the evening of the 
twelfth of December, 1889. A few moments be- 



28 BROWNING 

fore his death came a cablegram from London an- 
nouncing that his last volume of poems had been 
published that day, and that the evening papers were 
speaking in high terms of its contents. "That is 
very gratifying/' said he. 

Browning's life was healthy, comfortable, and 
happy. With the exception of frequent headaches 
in his earlier years, he never knew sickness or 
physical distress. His son said that he had never 
seen him in bed in the daytime until the last illness. 
He had a truly wonderful digestion ; it was his firm 
belief that one should eat only what one really en- 
joyed, desire being the infallible sign that the food 
was healthful. *'My father was a man of bonne 
fourchette/' said Barrett Browning to me ; "he was 
not very fond of meat, but liked all kinds of Italian 
dishes, especially with rich sauces. He always ate 
freely of rich and delicate things. He could make 
a whole meal off mayonnaise." It is pleasant to 
remember that Emerson, the other great optimist 
of the century, used to eat pie for breakfast. Un- 
like Carlyle and Tennyson, who smoked constantly, 
Browning never used tobacco; he drank wine with 
his meals, but sparingly, and never more than one 
kind of wine at a dinner. While physically robust, 
fond of riding and walking, never using a cab or 



THE MAN 29 

public conveyance if he could help it, he was like 
most first-class literary men in caring nothing what- 
ever for competitive sports. He did not learn to 
swim until late in life; his son taught him at Pornic, 
in Brittany. He was venturesome for a man well 
on in years, swimming far out with boyish delight, 
as he has himself described it in the Prologue to 
Fifine at the Fair. 

Browning's eyes were peculiar, one having a long 
focus, the other very short. He had the unusual ac- 
complishment (try it and prove) of closing either 
eye without "squinching," and without any appar- 
ent effort, though sometimes on the street in strong 
sunshine his face would be a bit distorted. He did 
all his reading and writing with one eye, closing the 
long one as he sat down at his desk. He never wore 
glasses, and was proud of his microscopic eye. He 
often wrote minutely, to show off his powers. When 
he left the house to go for a walk, he shut the short 
eye and opened the long one, with which he could see 
an immense distance. He never suffered with any 
pain in his eyes except once, when a boy, he was 
trying to be a vegetarian in imitation of his youth- 
ful idol, Shelley. 

Contrary to the oft-repeated statement, Browning 
was not a really fine pianist. As a very young man, 



3^ BROWNING 

he used to play ^veral instruments, and once he 
had been able to play all of Beethoven's sonatas on 
the piano. In later life he became ambitious to im- 
prove his skill with this instrument, and had much 
trouble, for his fingers were clumsy and stiff. He 
therefore used to rise at six, and practise finger- 
exercises for an hour! 

He loved first-class music ardently, had a pro- 
found knowledge of it, and was a good judge. If 
the performance was fine, he would express his 
praise with the utmost enthusiasm; but bad work 
caused him acute pain. Sometimes at a concert he 
would put his fingers in his ears, his suffering being 
apparently uncontrollable. 

The salient feature of his character was his boy- 
ish vivacity and enthusiasm. If he looked out o{ 
the window and saw a friend coming along the 
street to call, he would often rush out and embrace 
him. In conversation he was extraordinarily eager 
and impulsive, with a great flow of talk on an enor- 
mous range of subjects. If he liked anything, he 
spoke of it in the heartiest manner, laughing aloud 
with delight. He was very generous in his apprecia- 
tion and praise of other men's work, being beauti- 
fully free from that jealousy which is one of the 
besetting sins of artists. He always tried to see 



THE MAN 31 

what was good. Occasionally he was enraged at 
reading a particularly hostile criticism of himself, 
but on the whole he stood abuse very well, and had 
abundant opportunity to exercise the gift of pa- 
tience. A great admirer of Tennyson's poetry and 
of Tennyson's character — ^they were dear and inti- 
mate friends — ^he never liked the stock comparison. 
"Tennyson and I are totally unlike," he used to 
say. No letter from one rival to another was ever 
more beautiful than the letter Browning wrote to 
Tennyson on the occasion of the Laureate's eightieth 
birthday : 

"My Dear Tennyson — To-morrow is your birth- 
day — indeed, a memorable one. Let me say I asso- 
ciate myself with the universal pride of our country 
in your glory, and in its hope that for many and 
many a year we may have your very self among us 
^-secure that your poetry will be a wonder and de- 
light to all those appointed to come after. And for 
my own part, let me further say, I have loved you 
dearly. May God bless you and yours. 

"At no moment from first to last of my acquaint- 
ance with your works, or friendship with yourself, 
have I had any other feeling, expressed or kept 
silent, than this which an opportunity allows me to 
utter — that I am and ever shall be, my dear Tenny- 
son, admiringly and affectionately yours, 

"Robert Browning.'" 

What I have said of Browning's impulsiveness is 



32 BROWNING 

borne out not only by the universal testimony of 
those who knew him well, but particularly by a let- 
ter of Mrs. Browning to Mrs. Jameson. The 
manuscript of this letter was bought in London by 
an American, and went down with the Titanic in 
1912. An extract from it appeared in a bookseller's 
catalogue — "You must learn Robert — he is made 
of moods — chequered like a chess-board; and the 
colour goes for too much — till you learn to treat 
it as a game." 

No man — little or great — was ever more free 
from pose. His appearance, in clothes and in hair, 
was studiously normal. No one in his later years 
would ever have guessed that he was a poet, either 
in seeing him on the street, or in meeting him at din- 
ner. He was interested in multitudinous things, but 
never spoke of poetry — either in general or in his 
own particular — if he could avoid doing so. The 
fact that strangers who were presented to him and 
talked with him did not guess that he was the Mr. 
Browning, gave rise to numberless humorous sit- 
uations. 

Perhaps the best thing that can be said of his per- 
sonal character is the truthful statement that he 
stood in the finest manner two searching tests of 
manhood — long neglect and sudden popularity. The 



THE MAN 33 

long years of oblivion, during which he was pro- 
ducing much of his best work, made him neither 
angry nor sour, though he must have suffered deeply. 
On the other hand, when his fame reached prodig- 
ious proportions, he was neither conceited nor af- 
fected. He thoroughly believed in himself, and in 
his work; and he cared more about it than he did 
for its reception. 

The crushing grief that came to him in the death 
of his wife he bore with that Christian resignation 
of which we hear more often than perhaps we see 
in experience. For Browning was a Christian, not 
only in faith but in conduct; it was the mainspring 
of his art and of his life. There are so many writers 
whose lives show so painful a contrast with the 
ideal tone of their written work, that it is refreshing 
and inspiring to be so certain of Browning; to know 
that the author of the poems which thrill us was 
as great in character as he was in genius. 



II 

browning's theory of poetry 

WITH one exception, the economic law of 
supply and demand governs the production 
of literature exactly as it determines the price of 
wheat. For many years the Novel has been the chief 
channel of literary expression, the dominant literary 
form: in the days of Queen Elizabeth, the Drama 
was supreme. During the early part of the 
eighteenth century, theological poetry enjoyed a 
great vogue; Pope's Essay on Man circulated with 
the rapidity of a modern detective story. Consider 
the history of the English sonnet. This form of 
verse was exceedingly popular in 1600. By 1660 it 
had vanished, and remained obsolete for nearly a 
hundred years; about the middle of the eighteenth 
century it was revived by Thomas Edwards and 
others ; in the nineteenth century it became fashion- 
able, and still holds its place, as one may see by open- 
ing current magazines. Why is it that writers put 
their ideas on God, Nature, and Woman in the form 

34 



^BROWNING'S THEORY OF POETRY 35 

of a drama in 1600, and in the form of a novel in 
1900? Why is it that an inspired man should make 
poems of exactly fourteen lines in 1580 and in 1880, 
and not do it in 1680? If we do not attempt an 
ultimate metaphysical analysis, the answer is clear. 
The bookseller supplies the public, the publisher sup- 
plies the bookseller, the author supplies the pub- 
lisher. A bookseller has in his window what the 
people want, and the publisher furnishes material 
in response to the same desire; just as a farmer 
plants in his fields some foodstuffs for which there 
is a sharp demand. Authors are compelled to write 
for the market, whether they like it or not, other- 
wise their work can not appear in print. The rea- 
son why the modern novel, with all its shortcomings, 
is the mirror of ideas on every conceivable topic in 
religious, educational, economic, and sociological 
thought, is because the vast majority of writers are 
at this moment compelled by the market to put their 
reflections into the form of novels, just as Mar- 
lowe and Chapman were forced to write plays. 
With one exception, the law of supply and demand 
determines the metrical shape of the poet's frenzy, 
and the prose mould of the philosopher's ideas. 

The exception is so rare that it establishes the 
rule. The exception is Genius — ^next to radium the 



36 BROWNING 

scarcest article on earth. And even Genius often 
follows the market — it takes the prevailing literary 
fashion, and adapts itself to the form in vogue in a 
more excellent way. Such genius — the Genius for 
Adaptation — never has to wait long for recognition, 
simply because it supplies a keen popular demand. 
Such a genius was Shakespeare : such a genius was 
Pope: such a genius was Scott: such a genius was 
Byron : such a genius was Tennyson. But the true 
exception to the great economic law is seen in the 
Man of Original Genius, who cares not at all for 
the fashion except perhaps to destroy it. This man 
is outside the law of supply and demand, because 
he supplies no demand, and there exists no demand 
for him. He therefore has to create the demand 
as well as the supply. Such a man in Music was 
Wagner: such a man in Drama was Ibsen: such a 
man in Poetry was Browning. 

These three men were fortunate in all reaching 
the age of seventy, for had they died midway in 
their careers, even after accomplishing much of 
their best work, they would have died in obscurity. 
They had to wait long for recognition, because no- 
body was looking for them, nobody wanted them. 
There was no demand for Wagner's music — but 
there is now, and he made it. There was no de- 



BROWNING'S THEORY OF POETRY; 37 

mand for plays like those of Ibsen; and there was 
not the slightest demand for poetry like Pauline and 
the Dramatic Lyrics. The reason why the public 
does not immediately recognise the greatness of a 
work of original genius, is because the public at 
first — if it notices the thing at all — apprehends not 
its greatness, but its strangeness. It is so unlike the 
thing the public is seeking, that it seems grotesque 
or absurd — many indeed declare that it is exactly 
the opposite of what it professes to be. Thus, many 
insisted that Ibsen's so-called dramas were not really 
plays: they were merely conversations on serious 
and unpleasant themes. In like manner, the critics 
said that Wagner, whatever he composed, did not 
compose music; for instead of making melodies, he 
made harsh and discordant sounds. For eighty years, 
many men of learning and culture have been loudly 
proclaiming that Browning, whatever he was, was 
not a poet; he was ingenious, he was thoughtful, a 
philosopher, if you like, but surely no poet. When 
The Ring and the Book was published, a thoroughly 
respectable British critic wrote, "Music does not 
exist for him any more than for the deaf." On the 
other hand, the accomplished poet, musician, and 
critic, Sidney Lanier, remarked : 

"Have you seen Browning's The Ring and the 



38 BROWNING 

Bookf I am confident that at the birth of this man, 
among all the good fairies who showered him with 
magnificent endowments, one bad one — as in the 
old tale — crept in by stealth and gave him a consti- 
tutional twist i* the neck, whereby his windpipe be- 
came, and has ever since remained, a marvellous 
tortuous passage. Out of this glottis-labyrinth his 
words won't, and can't, come straight. A hitch and 
a sharp crook in every sentence bring you up with a 
shock. But what a shock it is ! Did you ever see a 
picture of a lasso, in the act of being flung? In a 
thousand coils and turns, inextricably crooked and 
involved and whirled, yet, if you mark the noose 
at the end, you see that it is directly in front of the 
bison's head, there, and is bound to catch him! 
That is the way Robert Browning catches you. The 
first sixty or seventy pages of The Ring and the 
Book are altogether the most doleful reading, in 
point either of idea or of music, in the English lan- 
guage; and yet the monologue of Giuseppe Capon- 
sacchi, that of Pompilia Comparini, and the two of 
Guido Franceschini, are unapproachable, in their 
kind, by any living or dead poet, me judice. Here 
Browning's jerkiness comes in with inevitable effect. 
You get lightning glimpses — and, as one naturally 
expects from lightning, zigzag glimpses — into the 



BROWNING'S THEORY OF POETRY 39 

intense night of the passion of these souls. It is 
entirely wonderful and without precedent."^ 

One of the most admirable things about Brown- 
ing's admirable career as poet and man is that he 
wrote not to please the critics, as Tennyson often 
did, not to please the crowd, as the vast horde of 
ephemeral writers do, but to please himself. The 
critics and the crowd professed that they could not 
understand him; but he had no difficulty in under- 
standing them. He knew exactly what they wanted, 
and declined to supply it. Instead of giving them 
what he thought they wanted, he gave them what he 

bought they needed. That illustrates the difference 
tween the literary caterer and the literary master. 
Some poets, critics, dramatists, and novelists are 
born to be followers of the public taste; they have 
their reward. Only a few, and one at a time, are 
leaders. This is entirely as it should be, for, with 
followers, the more the merrier; with leaders it is 
quite otherwise. 

In the case of a man of original genius, the first 
evidence of approaching fame is seen in the dust 
raised by contempt, scorn, ridicule, and various 
forms of angry resistance from those who will ulti- 



* Life of Sidney Lanier, by Professor Edwin Mims. 



40 BROWNING 

mately be converts. People resist him as they resist 
the Gospel. He comes unto his own, and his own 
receive him not. The so-called reading public have 
the stupid cruelty of schoolboys, who will not tol- 
erate on the part of any newcomer the slightest di- 
vergence in dress, manners, or conversation from 
the established standard. Conformity is king; for 
schoolboys are the most conservative mass of inertia 
that can be found anywhere on earth. And they 
are thorough masters of ridicule — the most pow- 
erful weapon known to humanity. But as in school- 
boy circles the ostracising laughter is sometimes a 
sign that a really original boy has made his appear- 
ance, so the unthinking opposition of the conven- 
tional army of readers is occasionally a proof that 
the new man has made a powerful impression which 
can not be shaken off. 

This is what Browning did with his "lasso" style. 
It was suitably adapted to his purposes, and the 
public behaved somewhat like the buffalo. They 
writhed, kicked, struggled, plunged, and the greater 
the uproar, the more evident it was that they were 
caught. Shortly before his death. Professor F. J. 
Child, a scholar of international fame, told me an- 
grily that Wagner was no musician at all; that he 
was a colossal fraud; that the growing enthusiasm 



BROWNING'S THEORY OF POETRY 41 

for him was mere affectation, which would soon 
pass away. He spoke with extraordinary passion. 
I wondered at his rage, but I understand it now. It 
was the rage of a king against the incoming and in- 
exorable tide. 

Nothing is more singular to contemplate than the 
variations in form of what the public calls melody, 
both in notation and in language. What delights 
the ears of one generation distresses or wearies the 
ears of another. Elizabethan audiences listened 
with rapture to long harangues in bombastic blank 
verse : a modern audience can not endure this. The 
senses of Queen Anne Englishmen were charmed 
by what they called the melody of Pope's verse — by 
its even regularity and steady flow. To us Pope's 
verse is full of wit and cerebration, but we find the 
measure intolerably monotonous. Indeed, by a 
curious irony of fate. Pope, who regarded himself 
as a supreme poet, has since frequently been declared 
to be no poet at all. Keats wrote Endymion in the 
heroic couplet — the very measure employed by Pope. 
But his use of it was so different that this poem 
would have seemed utterly lacking in melody to 
Augustan ears — Pope would have attempted to 
"versify" it. And yet we enjoy it. It seems ridicu- 
lous to say that the man who wrote Der fliegende 



42 BROWNING 

Hollander and Tannhduser could not write melody, 
and yet it was almost universally said. It seems 
strange that critics should have declared that the 
man who wrote Love Among the Ruins could not 
write rhythmical verse, yet such was once almost the 
general opinion. Still, the rebellious instinct of the 
public that condemned Wagner in music and Brown- 
ing in poetry was founded on something genuine; 
for Wagner was unlike other musicians, and 
Browning was unlike other poets. 

Eraser's Magazine, for December, 1833, contained 
a review of Browning's first poem, Pauline, which 
had been published that year. The critic decided 
that the new poet was mad : "you being, beyond all 
question^ as mad as Cassandra, without any of the 
power to prophesy like her, or to construct a con- 
nected sentence like anybody else. We have already 
had a Monomaniac; and we designate you *The 
Mad Poet of the Batch;' as being mad not in one 
direction only, but in all. A little lunacy, like a 
little knowledge, would be a dangerous thing." 

Yet it was in this despised and rejected poem 
that a great, original genius in English poetry was 
first revealed. It is impossible to understand 
Browning or even to read him intelligently without 
firmly fixing in the mind his theory of poetry, and 



BROWNING'S THEORY OF POETRY 43 

comprehending fully his ideal and his aim. All this 
he set forth clearly in Pauline, and though he was 
only twenty years old when he wrote it, he never 
wavered from his primary purpose as expressed in 
two lines of the poem, two lines that should never 
be forgotten by those who really wish to enjoy the 
study of Browning: 

And then thou said'st a perfect bard was one 
Who chronicled the stages of all life. 

What is most remarkable about this definition of 
poetry is what it omits. The average man regards 
poetry as being primarily concerned with the crea- 
tion of beauty. Not a word is said about beauty in 
Browning's theory. The average man regards poetry 
as being necessarily melodious, rhythmical, tuneful, 
above all, pleasing to the senses; but Browning 
makes no allusion here to rime or rhythm, nor to 
melody or music of any sort. To him the bard is a 
Reporter of Life, an accurate Historian of the Soul, 
one who observes human nature in its various mani- 
festations, and gives a faithful record. Sound, 
rhythm, beauty are important, because they are a 
part of life; and they are to be found in Brown- 
ing's works like wild flowers in a field; but they 
are not in themselves the main things. The main 



44 BROWNING 

thing is human life in its totality. Exactly in pro- 
portion to the poef s power of portraying life, is the 
poet great; if he correctly describes a wide range of 
life, he is greater than if he has succeeded only in a 
narrow stretch; and the Perfect Bard would be the 
one who had chronicled the stages of all life. 
Shakespeare is the supreme poet because he has ap- 
proached nearer to this ideal than any one else — he 
has actually chronicled most phases of humanity, 
and has truthfully painted a wide variety of charac- 
ter. Browning therefore says of him in Christmas- 
Eve — 

As I declare our Poet, him 

Whose insight makes all others dim : 

A thousand poets pried at life, 

And only one amid the strife 

Rose to be Shakespeare. 

Browning^s poetry, as he elsewhere expresses it, was 
always dramatic in principle, always an attempt to 
interpret human life. With that large number of 
highly respectable and useful persons who do not 
care whether they understand him or not, I have 
here no concern: but to those who really wish to 
learn his secret, I insist that his main intention must 
ever be kept in mind. Much of his so-called obscur- 
ity, harshness, and uncouthness falls immediately 
into its proper place, is indeed necessary. The proof 



BROWNING'S THEORY OF POETRY 45 

of his true greatness not as a philosopher, thinker, 
psychologist, but as a poet, lies in the simple fact 
that when the subject-matter he handles is beautiful 
or sublime, his style is usually adequate to the situa- 
tion. Browning had no difficulty in writing melodi- 
ously when he placed the posy in the Ring, 

O lyric Love, half angel and half bird 
And all a wonder and a wild desire, 

although just a moment before, when he was joking 
about his lack of readers, he was anything but mu- 
sical. The Ring and the Book is full of exquisite 
beauty, amazing felicity of expression, fluent rhythm 
and melody; full also of crudities, jolts, harshness, 
pedantry, wretched witticisms, and coarseness. Why 
these contrasts ? Because it is a study of human tes- 
timony. The lawyers in this work speak no radiant 
or spiritual poetry; they talk like tiresome, con- 
ceited pedants because they were tiresome, conceited 
pedants ; Pompilia's dying speech of adoring passion 
for Caponsacchi is sublime music, because she was a 
spiritual woman in a glow of exaltation. Guido 
speaks at first with calm, smiling irony, and later 
rages like a wild beast caught in a spring-trap; in 
both cases the verse fits his mood. If Pompilia's 
tribute to Caponsacchi had been expressed in Ian- 



46 BROWNING 

guage as dull and flat as the pleas of the lawyers, 
then we should be quite sure that Browning, what- 
ever he was, was no poet. For it would indicate that 
he could not create the right diction for the right sit- 
uation and character. Now, his picture of the triple 
light of sunset in The Last Ride Together is almost 
intolerably beautiful, because such a scene fairly 
overwhelms the senses. I hear the common and un- 
intelligent comment, "Ah, if he had only always 
written like that!" He would have done so, if he 
had been interested in only the beautiful aspects of 
this world. "How could the man who wrote such 
lovely music as that have also written such harsh 
stuff as Mr, Sludge, the Medium?" The answer is 
that in the former he was chronicling a stage of life 
that in its very essence was beauty: in the latter, 
something exactly the opposite. Life has its triviali- 
ties and its ugliness, as well as its sublime aspira- 
tions. In Browning's poetry, whenever the thought 
rises, the style automatically rises with it. 

Compare the diction of Holy Cross Day with that 
in Love Among the Ruins. Cleon is an old Greek 
poet, and he speaks noble, serene verse: Bishop 
Blougram is a subtle dialectician, a formidable an- 
tagonist in a joint debate, and he has the appropriate 



i 

BROWNING'S THEORY OF POETRY 47 

manner and language. Would you have him talk 
like the lover in Evelyn Hope? 

If Browning was a great artist, and the grotesque is 
an organic part of his structures. To find fault with 
the grotesque excrescences in Browning's poetry is 
exactly like condemning a cathedral because it has 
gargoyles. How could the architect that dreamed 
those wonderful columns and arches have made 
those hideous gargoyles ? Did he flatter himself they 
were beautiful? When Macbeth was translated 
into German, the translator was aghast at the 
coarse language of the drunken porter. How could 
the great Shakespeare, who had proved so often his 
capacity as an artist, have made such an appalling 
blunder? So the translator struck out the offensive 
words, and made the porter sing a sweet hymn to the 
dawn. 

The theory of poetry originally stated in Pauline 
Browning not only endeavored to exemplify in his 
work; he often distinctly repeated it. In The Glove, 
all the courtiers, hide-bound by conventional ideas, 

■ unite in derisive insults howled at the lady. She 
goes out 'mid hooting and laughter. Only two 
men follow her: one, because he loves her; the 
other, for purely professional reasons. To-day, he 
would of course be a society reporter. "I beg 



AS BROWNING 

your pardon, Madam, but would you kindly grant 
me an interview ? I represent the New York Flash, 
and we shall be glad to present your side of this 
story in our next Sunday issue." With equal pro- 
fessional zeal, Peter Ronsard is keenly interested in 
discovering the motives that underlay the lady's 
action. He simply must know, and in defense of 
his importunity, he presents his credentials. He is a 
poet, and therefore the strange scene that has just 
been enacted comes within his special domain. 

I followed after, 
And asked, as a grace, what it all meant ? 
If she wished not the rash deed's recallment? 
"For I" — so I spoke — "am a poet: 
Human nature, — ^behoves that I know it 1" 

In Transcendentalism^ a poem which is commonly 
misunderstood, Browning informs us that the true 
poet must deal, not with abstract thought, but with 
concrete things. A young poet informs an elder col- 
league that he has just launched a huge philosophical 
poem, called Transcendentalism: a Poem in Twelve 
Books, His wiser critic tells him that he is on the 
wrong track altogether ; what he has written is prose, 
not poetry. Poetry is not a discussion of abstract 
ideas, but the creation of individual things. Tran- 
scendentalism is not a fit subject for poetry, because 



BROWNING'S THEORY OF POETRY 49 

it deals with metaphysical thought, instead of dis- 
cussing men and women. To illustrate his point, he 
makes a comparison between botany and roses. 
Which is the more interesting, to read a heavy trea- 
tise on botany, or to behold roses ? A few pedants 
may like botany better, but ordinary humanity is 
quite right in preferring flowers. Browning indi- 
cates that the poet should not compose abstract 
treatises, but should create individual works of art, 
like the stout Mage of Halberstadt, 

John, who made things Boehme wrote thoughts about. 
He with a "look you !" vents a brace of rhymes, 
And in there breaks the sudden rose herself, 
Over us, under, round us every side, 
Nay, in and out the tables and the chairs 
And musty volumes, Boehme's book and all, — 
Buries us with a glory, young once more, 
Pouring heaven into this shut house of life. 

Many have failed to understand this poem, because 
they think that Browning himself is constantly guilty 
of the sin specifically condemned here. Browning has 
indeed often been called a thinker, a philosopher : but 
a moment's serious reflection will prove that of all 
English poetry outside of the drama. Browning's is 
the least abstract and the most concrete. Poetry is 
not condemned because it arouses thought, but only 
jvhen it is abstract in method. Browning often deals 



50 BROWNING 

with profound ideas, but always by concrete illus- 
trations. For example, he discusses the doctrine of 
predestination by giving us the individual figure of 
Johannes- Agricola in meditation : the royalist point 
of view in the seventeenth century by cavaliers sing- 
ing three songs : the damnation of indecision by two 
Laodicaean lovers in The Statue and the Bust, 
When Browning is interested in any doctrine, idea, 
or system of thought, he creates a person to illus- 
trate it. 

Browning's theory of poetry is further reen- 
forced by his poem How It Strikes a Contemporary, 
which, in the final rearrangement of his works, he 
placed directly after Transcendentalism, as though 
to drive his doctrine home. Here is a picture of a 
real poet. Where does he live, whence does he get 
his sources of inspiration, and how does he pass his 
time? The poem answers these questions in a most 
instructive manner, if only we keep in mind the orig- 
inal definition given in Pauline. It is conventionally 
believed that the country is more poetic than the 
city : that an ideal residence for a poet would be in 
lonely, lovely, romantic scenery ; and that in splendid 
solitude and isolation he should clothe his thoughts 
in forms of beauty. Now Browning's own life and 
methods of work were in exact contrast to these pop- 



BROWNING'S THEORY OF POETRY 51 

ular ideas ; because his theory of poetry requires the 
poet to Hve in the very midst of human activities, 
and to draw his inspiration not from a mountain or 
the stars, but from all sorts and conditions of men. 
Thus, in the poem, How It Strikes a Contemporary, 
the poet lives in a noisy city, spends his time walking 
the streets, and instead of being lost in a trance, he 
is intensely aware of everything that happens in the 
town. The poet is an observer, not a dreamer. In- 
deed, the citizens think this old poet is a royal spy, 
because he notices people and events with such sharp 
attention. Browning would seem to say that the 
mistake is a quite natural one ; the poet ought to act 
like a spy, for, if he be a true poet, he is a spy — a spy 
on human life. He takes upon himself the mystery 
of things, as if he were God's spy. 

He walked and tapped the pavement with his cane, 
Scenting the world, looking it full in face. . . . 
He glanced o'er books on stalls with half an eye, 
And fly-leaf ballads on the vendor's string, 
And broad-edge bold-print posters by the wall. 
He took such cognizance of men and things, 
If any beat a horse, you felt he saw ; 
If any cursed a woman, he took note. 

This is an exact description of the way Robert 
Browning walked the streets of Florence. Only a 
few years after this poem was printed, he was glanc- 



52 BROWNING 

ing o'er the books on stalls in the square of San Lo- 
renzo, and found the old yellow volume which he 
turned into an epic of humanity. The true poet 
"scents" the world, smells it out, as a dog locates 
game. A still stronger expression is used in Christ- 
mas-Eve, where the poets "pried" at life, turned up 
its surface in order to disclose all its hidden treas- 
ures of meaning. 

"TRANSCENDENTALISM: A POEM IN 
TWELVE BOOKS" 

1855 

Stop playing, poet! May a brother speak? 
'Tis you speak, that's your error. Song's our art : 
Whereas you please to speak these naked thoughts 
Instead of draping them in sights and sounds. 
— True thoughts, good thoughts, thoughts fit to treas- 
ure up ! 
But why such long prolusion and display, 
Such turning and adjustment of the harp. 
And taking it upon your breast, at length. 
Only to speak dry words across its strings? 
Stark-naked thought is in request enough : 
Speak prose and hollo it till Europe hears ! 
The six-foot Swiss tube, braced about with bark. 
Which helps the hunter's voice from Alp to Alp — 
Exchange our harp for that, — who hinders you? 

But here's your fault ; grown men want thought, 
you think; 
Thought's what they mean by verse, and seek in verse. 
Boys seek for images and melody, 



BROWNING'S THEORY OF POETRY 53 

Men must have reason — so, you aim at men. 

Quite otherwise! Objects throng our youth, 'tis true; 

We see and hear and do not wonder much : 

If you could tell us what they mean, indeed ! 

As German Boehme never cared for plants 

Until it happed, a-walking in the fields. 

He noticed all at once that plants could speak, 

Nay, turned with loosened tongue to talk with him. 

That day the daisy had an eye indeed — 

Colloquized with the cowslip on such themes 1 

We find them extant yet in Jacob's prose. 

But by the time youth slips a stage or two 

While reading prose in that tough book he wrote 

(Collating and emendating the same 

And settling on the sense most to our mind). 

We shut the clasps and find life's summer past. 

Then, who helps more, pray, to repair our loss — 

Another Boehme with a tougher book 

And subtler meanings of what roses say, — 

Or some stout Mage like him of Halberstadt, 

John, who made things Boehme wrote thoughts about? 

He with a "look you 1" vents a brace of rhymes, 

And in there breaks the sudden rose herself, 

Over us, under, round us every side. 

Nay, in and out the tables and the chairs 

And musty volumes, Boehme's book and all, — 

Buries us with a glory, young once more. 

Pouring heaven into this shut house of life. 

So come, the harp back to your heart again I 
You are a poem, though your poem's naught. 
The best of all you showed before, believe. 
Was your own boy-face o'er the finer chords 
Bent, following the cherub at the top 
That points to God with his paired half-moon wings. 



54 BROWNING 

HOW IT STRIKES A CONTEMPORARY 

1855 

I only knew one poet in my life : 

And this, or something like it, was his way. 

You saw go up and down Valladolid, 
A man of mark, to know next time you saw. 
His very serviceable suit of black 
Was courtly once and conscientious still. 
And many might have worn it, though none did : 
The cloak, that somewhat shone and showed the threads, 
Had purpose, and the ruff, significance. 
He walked and tapped the pavement with his cane. 
Scenting the world, looking it full in face, 
An old dog, bald and bHndish, at his heels. 
They turned up, now, the alley by the church. 
That leads nowhither ; now, they breathed themselves 
On the main promenade just at the wrong time: 
You'd come upon his scrutinizing hat, 
Making a peaked shade blacker than itself 
Against the single window spared some house 
Intact yet with its mouldered Moorish work, — • 
Or else surprise the ferrel of his stick 
Trying the mortar's temper 'tween the chinks 
Of some new shop a-building, French and fine. 
He stood and watched the cobbler at his trade, 
The man who slices lemons into drink, 
The coffee-roaster's brazier, and the boys 
That volunteer to help him turn its winch. 
He glanced o'er books on stalls with half an eye. 
And fly-leaf ballads on the vendor's string. 
And broad-edge bold-print posters by the wall. 
He took such cognizance M.men and things. 



BROWNING'S THEORY OF POETRY 55 

If any beat a horse, you felt he saw ; 

If any cursed a woman, he took note ; 

Yet stared at nobody, — you stared at him, 

And found, less to your pleasure than surprise, 

He seemed to know you and expect as much. 

So, next time that a neighbour's tongue was loosed, 

It marked the shameful and notorious fact. 

We had among us, not so much a spy, 

As a recording chief-inquisitor, 

The town's true master if the town but knewl 

We merely kept a governor for form. 

While this man walked about and took account 

Of all thought, said and acted, then went home, 

And wrote it fully to our Lord the King 

Who has an itch to know things, he knows why. 

And reads them in his bedroom of a night. 

Oh, you might smile 1 there wanted not a touch, 

A tang of . . . well, it was not wholly ease 

As back into your mind the man's look came. 

Stricken in years a little, — such a brow 

His eyes had to live under ! — clear as flint 

On either side the formidable nose 

Curved, cut and coloured like an eagle's claw. 

Had he to do with A.'s surprising fate? 

When altogether old B. disappeared 

And young C. got his mistress, — was't our friend. 

His letter to the King, that did it all? 

What paid the bloodless man for so much pains? 

Our Lord the King has favourites manifold, 

And shifts his ministry some once a month; 

Our city gets new governors at whiles, — 

But never word or sign, that I could hear, 

Notified to this man about the streets 

The King's approval of those letters conned 

The last thing duly at the dead of night. 



56 BROWNING 

Did the man love his office ? Frowned our Lord, 
Exhorting when none heard — "Beseech me not I 
"Too far above my people, — beneath me ! 
"I set the watch, — how should the people know? 
"Forget them, keep me all the more in mind !'* 
Was some such understanding 'twixt the two? 

I found no truth in one report at least — 
That if you tracked him to his home, down lanes 
Beyond the Jewry, and as clean to pace, 
You found he ate his supper in a room 
Blazing with lights, four Titians on the wall. 
And twenty naked girls to change his plate! 
Poor man, he lived another kind of life 
In that new stuccoed third house by the bridge. 
Fresh-painted, rather smart than otherwise! 
The whole street might o'erlook him as he sat. 
Leg crossing leg, one foot on the dog's back, 
Playing a decent cribbage with his maid 
(Jacynth, you're sure her name was) o'er the cheese 
And fruit, three red halves of starved winter-pears. 
Or treat of radishes in April. Nine, 
Ten, struck the church clock, straight to bed went he. 

My father, like the man of sense he was, 
Would point him out to me a dozen times ; 
" 'St— 'St," he'd whisper, "the Corregidor I" 
I had been used to think that personage 
Was one with lacquered breeches, lustrous belt. 
And feathers like a forest in his hat, 
Who blew a trumpet and proclaimed the news, 
Announced the bull-fights, gave each church its turn. 
And memorized the miracle in vogue! 
He had a great observance from us boys ; 
We were in error : that was not the man. 



BROWNING'S THEORY OF POETRY 57 

I'd like now, yet had haply been afraid, 
To have just looked, when this man came to die, 
And seen who lined the clean gay garret-sides 
And stood about the neat low truckle-bed, 
With the heavenly manner of relieving guard. 
Here had been, mark, the general-in-chief. 
Thro* a whole campaign of the world's life and death, 
Doing the King's work all the dim day long, 
In his old coat and up to knees in mud, 
Smoked like a herring, dining on a crust, — 
And, now the day was won, relieved at once ! 
No further show or need for that old coat, 
You are sure, for one thing ! Bless us, all the while 
How sprucely we are dressed out, you and 1 1 
A second, and the angels alter that. 
Well, I could never write a verse, — could you? 
Let's to the Prado and make the most of time. 

In common with all English poets — there is no 
exception — Browning loved nature. But he loved 
human nature so much more that when he contem- 
plates natural objects he thinks of them in terms of 
humanity. This is exactly contrary to the conven- 
tional method. Most poets and novelists describe 
human faces in terms of outdoor nature : the heroine 
has "stormy eyes," "rainy eyes," her face is swept 
by "gusts of passion," and so on, ad infinitum. I 
do not say that Browning's is the better way ; I say 
it is his way, because he was obsessed by humanity. 
To take instances only from his first poem : 



58 BROWNING 

Thou wilt remember one warm morn when winter 
Crept aged from the earth, and spring's first breath 
Blew soft from the moist hills ; the blackthorn boughs, 
So dark in the bare wood, when glistening 
In the sunshine were white with coming buds, 
Like the bright side of a sorrow, and the banks 
Had violets opening from sleep like eyes. 

Autumn has come like Spring returned to us 
Won from her girlishness. 

. . . the trees bend 
O'er it as wild men watch a sleeping girl. 

So, when Spring comes 
With sunshine back again like an old smile. 

I am to sing whilst ebbing day dies soft. 
As a lean scholar dies worn o'er his book, 
And in the heaven stars steal out one by one 
As hunted men steal to their mountain watch. 

Browning's love for the dramatic was so intense 
that he carried it into every kind of poetry that he 
wrote. Various classes of his works he called 
Dramas, Dramatic Lyrics, Dramatic Romances, 
Dramatic Idyls, Dramatis PersoncB. In one of her 
prefaces, Elizabeth Barrett had employed — for the 
first time in English literature, I think — the term 
Dramatic Lyric. This naturally appealed to Brown- 
ing, and he gave the title in 1842 to his first pub- 
lished collection of short poems. At first blush 



BROWNING'S THEORY OF POETRY 59 

"dramatic lyric" sounds like a contradiction in 
terms, like "non-mathematical algebra." Drama is 
the most objective branch of poetry, and the lyric 
the most subjective: but Browning was so intent 
upon the chronicling of all stages of life that he car- 
ried the methods of the drama into the lyric form, 
of which Meeting at Night may serve as an excellent 
example. Many of his short poems have the lyrical 
beauty of Shelley and Heine; but they all represent 
the soul of some historical or imaginary person. 

At the very end of The Ring and the Book, Brown- 
ing declared that human testimony was false, a state- 
ment that will be supported by any lawyer or judge 
of much court experience. Human testimony being 
worthless, there remains but one way for the poet to 
tell the truth about humanity, and that is through his 
art. The poet should use his skill not primarily with 
the idea of creating something beautiful, but with 
the main purpose of expressing the actual truth con- 
cerning human life and character. The highest art 
is the highest veracity, and this conforms to Brown- 
ing's theory of poetry. This was his ideal, and by 
adhering to this he hoped to save his soul. Brown- 
ing believed that by living up to our best capacity we 
attained unto salvation. The man who hid his talent 
in the earth was really a lost soul. Like many truly 



60 BROWNING 

great artists, Browning felt deeply the responsibility 
of his splendid endowment. In one of his letters to 
Miss Barrett, he said, "I must write poetry and save 
my soul." In the last lines of The Ring and the 
Book we find this thought repeated : 

So, British public, who may like me yet, 

(Marry and amen!) learn one lesson hence 

Of many which whatever lives should teach : 

This lesson, that our human speech is naught. 

Our human testimony false, our fame 

And human estimation words and wind. 

Why take the artistic way to prove so much? 

Because, it is the glory and good of Art, 

That Art remains the one way possible 

Of speaking truth, to minds like mine at least. . . . 

But Art, — wherein man nowise speaks to men, 

Only to mankind, — Art may tell a truth 

Obliquely, do the thing shall breed the thought, 

Nor wrong the thought, missing the mediate word. 

So may you paint your picture, twice show truth, 

Beyond mere imagery on the wall, — 

So, note by note, bring music from your mind. 

Deeper than ever e'en Beethoven dived, — 

So write a book shall mean beyond the facts, 

Suffice the eye and save the soul beside. 

And save the soul I 

From first to last Browning understood the pre- 
vailing criticism of his poetry, directed against its 
so-called lack of musical rhythm. He commented on 
it more than once. But he answered it always in the 



BROWNING'S THEORY OF POETRY 61 

same way, in Pip pa Passes, in the last stanzas of 
Pacchiarotto, and in the Epilogue to the same vol- 
ume. He insisted that what the critics meant by 
melody was a childish jingle of rimes like Mother 
Goose. Referring to Sordello, he makes the Second 
Student in Pip pa Passes remark, ^'Instead of cramp 
couplets, each like a knife in your entrails, he should 
write, says Bluphocks, both classically and intelligi- 
bly. . . . One strip Cools your lip. . . . 
One bottle Clears your throttle." In Pacchiarotto, 
he calls to critics : 

And, what with your rattling and tinkling, 
Who knows but you give me an inkling 
How music sounds, thanks to the jangle 
Of regular drum and triangle? 
Whereby, tap-tap, chink-chink, *tis proven 
I break rule as bad as Beethoven. 
"That chord now — a groan or a grunt is't? 
Schumann's self was no worse contrapuntist. 
No ear! or if ear, so tough-gristled — 
He thought that he sung while he whistled 1" 

Browning felt that there was at times a certain 
virtue in mere roughness: that there were ideas, 
which, if expressed in harsh phrase, would make a 
deeper impression, and so be longer remembered. 
The opening stanza of The Twins was meant to 
emphasise this point : 



62 BROWNING 

Grand rough old Martin Luther 
Bloomed fables — flowers on furz^ 
The better the uncouther : 
Do roses stick like burrs? 

Such a theory may help to explain the powerful 
line in Rabbi Ben Ezra: 

Irks care the crop full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed 
beast ? 

Of course Browning's theory of poetry does not 
justify or explain all the unmusical passages in his 
works. He felt, as every poet must, the difficulty of 
articulation — the disparity between his ideas and the 
verbal form he was able to give them. Browning 
had his trials in composition, and he placed in the 
mouth of the Pope his own ardent hope that in the 
next world there will be some means of communica- 
tion better than language : 

Expect nor question nor reply 
At what we figure as God's judgment bar! 
None of this vile way by the barren words 
Which, more than any deed, characterise 
Man as made subj ect to a curse : no speech. 

Over and over again, however. Browning declared 
that poetry should not be all sweetness. Flowers 
growing naturally here and there in a pasture are 
much more attractive than cut and gathered into a 



BROWNING'S THEORY OF POETRY 63 

nosegay. As Luther's long disquisitions are adorned 
with pretty fables, that bloom like flowers on furze, 
so, in the Epilogue to Pacchiarotto, Browning in- 
sisted that the wide fields of his verse are not with- 
out cowslips : 

And, friends, beyond dispute 
I too have the cowslips dewy and dear. 

Punctual as Springtide forth peep they: 

But I ought to pluck and impound them, eh ? 
Not let them alone, but deftly shear 

And shred and reduce to — what may suit 

Children, beyond dispute? 

Now, there are many law-abiding and transpar- 
ently honest persons who prefer anthologies to 
"works," who love to read tiny volumes prettily 
bound, called "Beauties of Ruskin," and who have 
substituted for the out-of- fashion "Daily Food" 
books, painted bits of cardboard with sweet sayings 
culled from popular idols of the day, with which 
they embellish the walls of their offices and bed- 
rooms, in the hope that they may hoist themselves 
into a more hallowed frame of mind. This is the 
class — always with us, though more prosperous than 
the poor — who prefer a cut bouquet to the natural 
flowers in wood and meadow, and for whose com- 
fort and convenience Browning declined to work. 
His poetry is too stiff for these readers, partly be- 



64 BROWNING 

cause they start with a preconceived notion of the 
function of poetry. Instead of being charmed, their 
first sensation is a shock. They honestly beheve 
that the attitude of the mind in apprehending poetry 
should be passive, not active : is not the poet a public 
entertainer ? Did we not buy the book with the ex- 
pectation of receiving immediate pleasure ? The an- 
ticipated delight of many persons when they open a 
volume of poems is almost physical, as it is when 
they settle themselves to hear certain kinds of music. 
They feel presumably as a comfortable cat does 
when her fur is fittingly stroked. The torture that 
many listeners suffered when they heard Wagner 
for the first time was not imaginary, it was real; 
"Oh, if somebody would only play a tune!" Yet 
Wagner converted thousands of these quondam suf- 
ferers, and conquered them without making any 
compromises. He simply enlarged their conception 
of what opera-music might mean. He gave them 
new sources of happiness without robbing them of 
the old. For my part, although I prefer Wagner's 
to all other operas, I keenly enjoy Mozart's Don 
Giovanni, Charpentier's Louise, Gounod's Faust, 
Strauss's Salome, Verdi's Aida, and I never miss an 
opportunity to hear Gilbert and Sullivan. Almost 



BROWNING'S THEORY OF POETRY 65 

all famous operas have something good in them ex- 
cept the works of Meyerbeer. 

We all have moods when the mind wishes to be 
lulled, soothed, charmed, hypnotised with agreeable 
melody, and in English literature we fortunately 
have many great poets who can perform this service. 

That strain again I it had a dying fall. 

Tennyson was a veritable magician, who charmed 
with his genius hundreds and thousands of people. 
No arduous mental effort is necessary for the en- 
joyment of his verse, which is one reason why he is 
and will remain a popular poet. Browning can not 
be taken in just that way, any more than a man 
completely exhausted with the day's work can enjoy 
Siegfried or Hedda Gahler. Active, constant cere- 
bration on the part of the listener or the reader is 
essential. This excludes at once a considerable num- 
ber to whom the effort of real thinking is as strange 
as it is oppressive. Browning is a stimulus, not a 
sedative ; his poetry is like an electric current which 
naturally fails to affect those who are non-conduct- 
ors of poetry. As one of my undergraduate stu- 
dents tersely expressed it, "Tennyson soothes our 
senses : Browning stimulates our thoughts." Poetry 



66 BROWNING 

is in some ways like medicine. Tennyson quiets the 
nerves: Browning is a tonic: some have found 
Thomson*s Seasons invaluable for insomnia: the 
poetry of Swift is an excellent emetic. 

I do not quite understand the intense anger of 
many critics and readers over the eternal question of 
Browning's obscurity. They have been harping on 
this theme for eighty years and show no more sign 
of exhaustion than a dog barking in the night. Why 
do the heathen rage? Why do they not let Brown- 
ing alone, and read somebody they can understand ? 
Browning is still gravely rebuked by many critics 
for having written Sordello, Over and over again 
we have been informed that the publication of this 
poem shattered his reputation for twenty-five years. 
Well, what of it? what difference does it make now? 
He seems to have successfully survived it. This 
huge work, which William Sharp called "that co- 
lossal derelict upon the ocean of poetry,'* is des- 
tined to have an immortality all its own. From one 
point of view, we ought to be grateful for its publi- 
cation. It has aroused inextinguishable laughter 
among the blessed gods. It is not witty in itself, but 
it is the cause of wit in many. Douglas Jerrold and 
Carlyle commented delightfully on it; even Tenny- 
son succeeded for once in saying something funny. 



BROWNING'S THEORY OF POETRY 67 

One critic called it a fine house in which the archi- 
tect had forgotten to put any stairs. Another called 
it a huge boil in which all the impurities in Brown- 
ing's system came to an impressive head, after which 
the patient, pure from poison, succeeded in writing 
the clear and beautiful Pip pa Passes. Besides in- 
numerable parodies that have been forgotten, 
Browning's obscurity was the impenetrable flint that 
struck two mental flashes that belong to literature, 
Calverley's Cock and the Bull, and Swinburne's John 
J ones J a brilliant exposition of the perversities in 
that tedious poem, James Lee's Wife. Not long ago, 
a young man sat by the lamplight, studying a thick 
volume with evident discomfort. To the friend who 
asked what he was doing, he replied, "I'm studying 
Browning." 

"Why, no, you idiot, that isn't Browning : you are 
reading the index of first lines to the works of 
Wordsworth." 

"By Jove! you're right! But it sounds just like 
Browning." 

Browning's place in English literature is not with 
the great verse-sculptors. Hot with the masters of 
imperishable beauty of form; he does not belong to 
the glorious company where reign supreme Milton, 
Keats, and Tennyson; his place is rather with the 



68 BROWNING 

Interpreters of Life, with the poets who use their 
art to express the shine and shade of Hfe's tragi- 
comedy — to whom the base, the trivial, the frivo- 
lous, the grotesque, the absurd seem worth reporting 
along with the pure, the noble, and the sublime, 
since all these elements are alike human. In this 
wide field of art, with the exception of Shakespeare, 
who is the exception to everything, the first-born 
and the last-born of all the great English poets know 
no equal in the five centuries that rolled between 
them. The first person to say this publicly was him- 
self a poet and a devoted student of Form — Walter 
Savage Landor. When he said it, people thought it 
was mere hyperbole, the stressed language of com- 
pliment ; but we know now that Landor' s words are 
as true as they are beautiful : 

Shakespeare is not our poet, but the world's, 
Therefore on him no speech 1 and brief for thee, 
Browning ! Since Chaucer was alive and hale, 
No man hath walk'd along our roads with step 
So active, so enquiring eye, or tongue 
So varied in discourse. 

Many critics who are now dead, and some that 
are yet alive, have predicted the speedy death of 
Browning's reputation. This prediction seems to 
afford a certain class of critics a calm and holy joy. 
Some years ago, Mr. James Douglas, of London, 



BROWNING'S THEORY OF POETRY 69 

solemnly announced the approaching demise. 
Browning will die, said he, even as Donne is dead, 
and for the same reason. But Donne is not quite 
dead. 

I must survive a thing ere know it dead. 

I think Donne will survive all our contemporary 
criticisms about him. Ben Jonson said that Donne, 
for not keeping of accent, deserved hanging. But 
Donne, though he forgot to keep step with the proces- 
sion of poets, has survived many poets who tripped 
a regular measure. He has survived even Pope's 
"versification" of his poems, one of the most uncon- 
sciously humorous things in English literature. Ac- 
cent alone will not keep a man alive. Which poet 
of these latter days stands the better chance to re- 
main, Francis Thompson, whose spiritual flame oc- 
casionally burned up accent, or Alfred Austin, who 
studied to preserve accent through a long life? Ac- 
cent is indeed important; but raiment is of little 
value unless it clothes a living body. Does Brown- 
ing's best poetry smell of mortality? Nearly every 
new novel I read in English has quotations from 
Browning without the marks, sure evidence that the 
author has read him and assumes that the readers 
of the novel have a like acquaintance. When 



70 BROWNING 

Maeterlinck wrote his famous play, Monna Vanna, 
he took one of the scenes directly from Browning's 
Luria : he said that he had been inspired by Brown- 
ing: that Browning is one of the greatest poets that 
England has ever produced: that to take a scene 
from him is a kind of public homage, such as we 
pay to Homer, ^schylus, and Shakespeare. 

With the exception of Shakespeare, any other 
English poet could now be spared more easily than 
Browning. For, owing to his aim in poetry, and his 
success in attaining it, he gave us much vital truth 
and beauty that we should seek elsewhere in vain; 
and, as he said in the Epilogue to Pacchiarotto, the 
strong, heady wine of his verse may become sweet 
in process of time. 



Ill 



LYRICS 



A PURE lyric, as distinguished from other kinds 
^ of poetry, narrative, descriptive, epic, dra- 
matic, should have three characteristic qualities, im- 
mediately evident on the first reading : it should be 
short, it should be melodious, it should express only 
one mood. A very long lyrical poem has never been 
written, and probably could not be : a lyric without 
fluent melody is unthinkable : and a poem represent- 
ing a great variety of moods would more properly 
be classed as descriptive or dramatic than lyrical. 
Examples of the perfect lyric in nineteenth cen- 
tury English poetry are Shelley's / Arise From 
Dreams of Thee: Keats's Bright Star: Byron's She 
Walks in Beauty: Tennyson's Break, Break, Break. 
In each one of these notable illustrations the poem 
is a brief song of passion, representing the mood of 
the singer at that moment. 

There are innumerable lyrical passages in Brown- 
ing's long poems, and in his dramatic monologues : 

71 



72 BROWNING 

there are splendid outbursts of melody. He could 
not be ranked among the greatest English poets if 
he had not been one of our greatest singers. But 
we do not go to Browning primarily for song. He 
is not one of our greatest lyrical poets. It is certain, 
however, that he could have been had he chosen to 
be. He wrote a sufficient number of pure lyrics to 
prove his quality and capacity. But he was so much 
more deeply interested in the study of the soul than 
in the mere expression of beauty — ^he was so essen- 
tially, from Pauline to Asolando — a dramatic poet, 
that his great contribution to literature is seen in 
profound and subtle interpretations of the human 
heart. It is fortunate that he made the soul his 
specialty, because English literature is wonderfully 
rich in song : there are many poets who can thrill us 
with music: but there is only one Browning, and 
there is no group of writers in any literature among 
which he can be classed. 

Browning's dramatic lyrics differ from Tenny- 
son's short poems as the lyrics of Donne differed 
fron; those of Campion; but Browning occasionally 
tried his hand at the composition of a pure lyric, 
as if to say, "You see I can write like this when I 
choose." Therein lies his real superiority to almost 
all other English poets : he could do their work, but 



LYRICS 73 

they could not do his. It is significant that his first 
poem, Pauline, should have deeply impressed two 
men of precisely opposite types of mind. These two 
were John Stuart Mill and Dante Gabriel Rossetti 
— their very names illustrating beautifully the dif- 
ference in their mental tastes and powers. Carlyle 
called Mill a "logic-chopping engine," because his 
intellectual processes were so methodical, systematic, 
hard-headed: Rossetti was a master of color and 
harmony. Yet Mill found in Pauline the workings 
of a powerful mind: and Rossetti's sensitive tem- 
perament was charmed with the wonderful pictures 
and lovely melodies it contained. 

I like to think that Mill read, paused, re-read and 
meditated on this passage : 

I am made up of an intensest life, 

Of a most clear idea of consciousness 

Of self, distinct from all its qualities, 

From all affections, passions, feelings, powers ; 

And thus far it exists, if tracked, in all : 

But linked, in me, to self-supremacy 

Existing as a centre to all things. 

Most potent to create and rule and call 

Upon all things to minister to it; 

And to a principle of restlessness 

Which would be all, have, see, know, taste, feel, all — 

This is myself ; and I should thus have been 

Though gifted lower than the meanest soul. 



74 BROWNING 

I like to think that Rossetti was thrilled with this 

picture of Andromeda : 

Andromeda ! 
And she is with me : years roll, I shall change, 
But change can touch her not — so beautiful 
With her fixed eyes, earnest and still, and hair 
Lifted and spread by the salt-sweeping breeze, 
And one red beam, all the storm leaves in heaven, 
Resting upon her eyes and hair, such hair. 
As she awaits the snake on the wet beach 
By the dark rock and the white wave just breaking 
At her feet; quite naked and alone; a thing 
I doubt not, nor fear for, secure some god 
To save will come in thunder from the stars. 

It is rather singular, in view of the great vogue 
of the sonnet in the nineteenth century, that neither 
Tennyson nor Browning should have succeeded in 
this form. The two men wrote very few sonnets — 
Browning fewer than Tennyson — and neither ever 
wrote a great one. Longfellow, so inferior in most 
respects to his two great English contemporaries, 
was an incomparably superior sonnetteer. Tenny- 
son's sonnets are all mediocre: Browning did not 
publish a single sonnet in the final complete edition 
of his works. He did however print a very few on 
special occasions, and when he was twenty-two years 
old, between the composition of Pauline and Para- 
celsus, there appeared in the Monthly Repository a 
sonnet beginning 



LYRICS 75 

Eyes calm beside thee (Lady, could'st thou know!) 

which is the best example from his pen that has been 
preserved. Although he did not think much of it 
in later years, it has been frequently reprinted, and 
is worth keeping; both for the ardor of its passion, 
and because it is extraordinary that he should have 
begun so very early in his career a form of verse 
that he practically abandoned. This sonnet may 
have been addressed to a purely imaginary ideal; 
but it is possible that the young man had in mind 
Eliza Flower, for whom he certainly had a boy- 
ish love, and who was probably the original of 
Pauline. She and her sister, Sarah Flower, the au- 
thor of Nearer, My God, to Thee, were both older 
than Browning, and both his intimate friends dur- 
ing the period of his adolescence. 

SONNET 

1834 

Eyes calm beside thee (Lady, could'st thou know!) 
May turn away thick with fast-gathering tears : 
I glance not where all gaze : thrilling and low 
Their passionate praises reach thee — my cheek wears 
Alone no wonder when thou passest by; 
Thy tremulous lids bent and suffused reply 
To the irrepressible homage which doth glow 
On every lip but mine : if in thine ears 
Their accents linger — and thou dost recall 
Me as I stood, still, guarded, very pale, 



76 BROWNING 

Beside each votarist whose hghted brow 
Wore worship hke an aureole, "O'er them all 
My beauty," thou wilt murmur, "did prevail 
Save that one only :" — Lady, could'st thou know I 

It is perhaps characteristic of Browning that this 
early sonnet should be so irregular in its rime- 
scheme. 

The songs in Paracelsus (1835) prove that 
Browning was a genuine lyrical poet: the best of 
them, Over the Sea Our Galleys Went, is more prop- 
erly a dramatic monologue : but the song in the sec- 
ond act, by Aprile (who I think stands for Keats) 
is a pure lyric, and so are the two stanzas sung by 
Paracelsus in the fourth act. There are lines here 
which suggest something of the drowsy music of 
Tennyson's Lotos-Eaters, published in 1832: 

. . . . such balsam falls 
Down sea-side mountain pedestals. 
From tree-tops where tired winds are fain, 
Spent with the vast and howling main, 
To treasure half their island-gain. 

SONGS FROM PARACELSUS 

1835 

(Aprile sings) 

I hear a voice, perchance I heard 
Long ago, but all too low, 
So that scarce a care it stirred 
If the voice were real or no : 



LYRICS 77 

I heard it in my youth when first 

The waters of my Hfe outburst: 

But, now their stream ebbs faint, I hear 

That voice, still low, but fatal-clear — 

As if all poets, God ever meant 

Should save the world, and therefore lent 

Great gifts to, but who, proud, refused 

To do his work, or lightly used 

Those gifts, or failed through weak endeavour, 

So, mourn cast off by him for ever, — 

As if these leaned in airy ring 

To take me ; this the song they sing. 

"Lost, lost ! yet come. 
With our wan troop make thy home. 
Come, come ! for we 
Will not breathe, so much as breathe 
Reproach to thee. 

Knowing what thou sink'st beneath. 
So sank we in those old years. 
We who bid thee, come ! thou last 
Who, living yet, hast life o'erpast. 
And altogether we, thy peers. 
Will pardon crave for thee, the last 
Whose trial is done, whose lot is cast 
With those who watch but work no more, 
Who gaze on life but live no more. 
Yet we trusted thou shouldst speak 
The message which our lips, too weak, 
Refused to utter, — shouldst redeem 
Our fault : such trust, and all a dream I 
Yet we chose thee a birthplace 
Where the richness ran to flowers : 
Couldst not sing one song for grace? 
Not make one blossom man's and ours? 



78 BROWNING 

Must one more recreant to his race 

Die with unexerted powers, 

And join us, leaving as he found 

The world, he was to loosen, bound? 

Anguish ! ever and for ever ; 

Still beginning, ending never. 

Yet, lost and last one, come! 

How couldst understand, alas. 

What our pale ghosts strove to say, 

As their shades did glance and pass 

Before thee night and day? 

Thou wast blind as we were dumb : 

Once more, therefore, come, O come! 

How should we clothe, how arm the spirit 

Shall next thy post of Hfe inherit — 

How guard him from thy speedy ruin? 

Tell us of thy sad undoing 

Here, where we sit, ever pursuing 

Our weary task, ever renewing 

Sharp sorrow, far from God who gave 

Our powers, and man they could not save 1" 

(Paracelsus sings) 
Heap cassia, sandal-buds and stripes 

Of labdanum, and aloe-balls. 
Smeared with dull nard an Indian wipes 
From out her hair : such balsam falls 
Down sea-side mountain pedestals, 
From tree-tops where tired winds are fain, 
Spent with the vast and howling main, 
To treasure half their island-gain. 

And strew faint sweetness from some old 
Egyptian's fine worm-eaten shroud 

Which breaks to dust when once unrolled ; 
Or shredded perfume, like a cloud 



LYRICS 79 

From closet long to quiet vowed, 
With mothed and dropping arras hung, 
Mouldering her lute and books among. 
As when a queen, long dead, was young. 

(Song by Festus) 

Thus the Mayne glideth 
Where my Love abideth. 
Sleep's no softer : it proceeds 
On through lawns, on through meads. 
On and on, whate'er befall. 
Meandering and musical. 
Though the niggard pasturage 
Bears not on its shaven ledge 
Aught but weeds and waving grasses 
To view the river as it passes, 
Save here and there a scanty patch 
Of primroses too faint to catch 
A weary bee. 

And scarce it pushes 
Its gentle way through strangling rushes 
Where the glossy kingfisher 
Flutters when noon-heats are near. 
Glad the shelving banks to shun, 
Red and steaming in the sun. 
Where the shrew-mouse with pale throat 
Burrows, and the speckled stoat; 
Where the quick sandpipers flit 
In and out the marl and grit 
That seems to breed them, brown as they : 
Nought disturbs its quiet way. 
Save some lazy stork that springs, 
Trailing it with legs and wings. 
Whom the shy fox from the hill 
Rouses, creep he ne'er so still. 



80 , BROWNING 

The songs in Pip pa Passes (1841) are all ex- 
quisite works of art. The one on the King had been 
printed in the Monthly Repository in 1835 : the oth- 
ers appeared for the first time in the published 
drama. All of them are vitally connected with the 
action of the plot, differing in this respect from the 
Elizabethan custom of simple interpolation. The 
song sung in the early morning by the girl in her 
chamber 

All service ranks the same with God 

contains the philosophy of the play — ^human lives 
are inextricably intertwined, and all are dependent 
on the will of God. No individual can separate him- 
self either from other men and women, or can 
sever the connection between himself and his Father 
in Heaven. The first stanza repeats the teaching 
of Milton in the sonnet on his blindness : the second 
is more definitely connected with Pippa's profes- 
sional work. 

Untwine me from the mass 
Of deeds which make up life, 

refers to her daily duty as a girl in the silk-mill, 
for she naturally thinks of the complexity of Hfe 
as a tangled skein. 



LYRICS 81 

AH service ranks the same with God : 

If now, as formerly he trod 

Paradise, his presence fills 

Our earth, each only as God wills 

Can work— God's puppets, best and worst, 

Are we ; there is no last nor first. 

Say not "a small event I" Why "small" ? 
Costs it more pain that this, ye call 
A "great event," should come to pass, 
Than that? Untwine me from the mass 
Of deeds which make up life, one deed 
Power shall fall short in or exceed ! 

OTHER SONGS FROM PIPPA PASSES 
1841 

You'll love me yet ! — and I can tarry 

Your love's protracted growing: 
June reared that bunch of flowers you carry, 

From seeds of April's sowing. 

I plant a heartf ul now : some seed 

At least is sure to strike, 
And yield — what you'll not pluck indeed. 

Not love, but, may be, like. 

You'll look at least on love's remains, 

A grave's one violet : 
Your look ? — that pays a thousand pains. 

What's death ? You'll love me yet 1 

Overhead the tree-tops meet. 
Flowers and grass spring 'neath one's feet ; 
There was nought above me, nought below, 
My childhood had not learned to know : 



82 BROWNING 

For, what are the voices of birds 

— Ay, and of beasts, — ^but words, our words, 

Only so much more sweet? 

The knowledge of that with my life begun. 

But I had so near made out the sun, 

And counted your stars, the seven and one, 

Like the fingers of my hand : 

Nay, I could all but understand 

Wherefore through heaven the white moon ranges ; 

And just when out of her soft fifty changes 

No unfamiliar face might overlook me — 

Suddenly God took me. 

The most famous song in the play, which simply 
sings itself, is : 

The year's at the spring 
And day's at the morn ; 
Morning's at seven; 
The hill-side's dew-pearled; 
The lark's on the wing; 
The snail's on the thorn : 
God's in his heaven — 
All's right with the world ! 

The last line is unfortunately very often mis- 
quoted 

All's well with the world! 

a remark never made either by Pippa or by Brown- 
ing. In Browning's philosophy all may be right with 
the world, and yet far from well. Perhaps it is too 
prosaically minute to point out in so beautiful a 



LYRICS 83 

poem, a scientific error, but at seven o'clock on the 
first of January in Asolo the sun is still below 
the horizon. 

MERTOUN'S SONG FROM A BLOT IN THE 
'SCUTCHEON 



1843 



There's a woman like a dew-drop, she's so purer than the 

purest ; 
And her noble heart's the noblest, yes, and her sure faith's the 

surest : 
And her eyes are dark and humid, like the depth on depth of 

lustre 
Hid i' the harebell, while her tresses, sunnier than the wild- 
grape cluster, 
Gush in golden-tinted plenty down her neck's rose-misted 

marble : 
Then her voice's music . . . call it the well's bubbling, the 

bird's warble ! 
And this woman says, "My days were sunless and my nights 

were moonless, 
"Parched the pleasant April herbage, and the lark's heart's 

outbreak tuneless, 
"If you loved me not!" And I who — (ah, for words of 

flame!) adore her, 
Who am mad to lay my spirit prostrate palpably before her — 
I may enter at her portal soon, as now her lattice takes me. 
And by noontide as by midnight make her mine, as hers she 

makes me I 

The two lyrics, Home-Thoughts, from the Sea and 
Home-Thoughts, from Abroad, were written dur- 



84 BROWNING 

ing Browning's first Italian journey in 1838; and it 
seems strange that he did not print them among the 
Dramatic Lyrics of 1842 but reserved them for the 
Dramatic Romances of 1845; especially as he sub- 
sequently transferred them to the Lyrics. They are 
both notable on account of the strong feeling for 
England which they express. No great English 
poet has said so little of England as Browning, 
though his own feelings were always keenly patri- 
otic. Even in Pauline, a poem without a country, 
there occur the two lines 

, , , \ and I cherish most 
My love of England — how her name, a word 
Of hers in a strange tongue makes my heart beat I 

The allusion to the English thrush has given im- 
mortality to Home-Thoughts, from Abroad. Many 
had observed that the thrush sings a lilt, and immedi- 
ately repeats it : but Browning was the first to give 
a pretty reason for it. The thrush seems to say, 
"You think that beautiful melody is an accident? 
Well, I will show you it is no fluke, I will sing it 
correctly right over again." Browning was not in 
Italy in April — perhaps he wrote the first stanza on 
the voyage, as he wrote Home-Thoughts, from 
the Sea, and added the second stanza about May and 
June after he had reached the country of his quest. 



LYRICS 85 

HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM THE SEA 
1845 

Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the North-west died away ; 

Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay ; 

Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay ; 

In the dimmest North-east distance dawned Gibraltar grand 
and gray; 

"Here and here did England help me: how can I help Eng- 
land ?" — say. 

Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray, 

While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa. 

HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD 
1845 



Oh, to be in England 

Now that April's there. 

And whoever wakes in England 

Sees, some morning, unaware. 

That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf 

Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, 

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough 

In England — nowl 

II 

And after April, when May follows, 
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows 1 
Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge 
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover 
Blossoms and dewdrops — at the bent spray's edge — 
That's the wise thrush ; he sings each song twice over. 
Lest you should think he never could recapture 
The first fine careless rapture 1 



86 BROWNING 

And though the fields look rough with hoary dew, 
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew 
The buttercups, the little children's dower 
— Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower I 

The collection of poems called James Lee*s Wife, 
published in th.^ Dramatis Personce (1864), seems 
to me illustrative of Browning's worst faults; it is 
obscure, harsh, and dull. But it contains one fine 
lyric descriptive of an autumn morning, a morning, 
by the way, much commoner in America during 
autumn than anywhere in Europe. The second 
stanza is nobly ethical in its doctrine of love — that 
we should not love only those persons whom we can 
respect, for true love seeks no profit. It must be 
totally free from the prospect of gain. A beautiful 
face inspired another lyric in this volume, and 
Browning drew upon his memories of Correggio to 
give the perfect tone to the poem. 

FROM JAMES LEE'S WIFE 
1864 



Oh, good gigantic smile o' the brown old earth, 
This autumn morning ! How he sets his bones 

To bask i' the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet 

For the ripple to run over in its mirth ; 
Listening the while, wh?re on the heap of stones 

The white breast of the sea-lark twitters sweet. 



LYRICS 87, 

II 

That is the doctrine, simple, ancient, true; 

Such is life's trial, as old earth smiles and knows. 
If you loved only what were worth your love, 
Love were clear gain, and wholly well for you : 

Make the low nature better by your throes I 
Give earth yourself, go up for gain above ! 

A FACE 
1864 

If one could have that little head of hers 
Painted upon a background of pale gold, 

Such as the Tuscan's early art prefers I 
No shade encroaching on the matchless mould 

Of those two lips, which should be opening soft 
In the pure profile ; not as when she laughs, 

For that spoils all : but rather as if aloft 
Yon hyacinth, she loves so, leaned its staff's 

Burthen of honey-coloured buds to kiss 

And capture 'twixt the lips apart for this. 

Then her lithe neck, three fingers might surround, 

How it should waver on the pale gold ground 

Up to the fruit-shaped, perfect chin it lifts 1 

I know, Correggio loves to mass, in rifts 

Of heaven, his angel faces, orb on orb 

Breaking its outline, burning shades absorb : 

But these are only massed there, I should think. 
Waiting to see some wonder momently 
Grow out, stand full, fade slow against the sky 
(That's the pale ground you'd see this sweet face by). 
All heaven, meanwhile, condensed into one eye 

Which fears to lose the wonder, should it wink. 



88 BROWNING 

One of the most original and powerful of Brown- 
ing's lyrical pieces comes just where we should least 
expect it, at the end of that dark, dreary, and all 
but impenetrable wilderness of verse, Fifine at the 
Fair. It serves as an Epilogue, but it would be diffi- 
cult and unprofitable to attempt to discover its con- 
nection with the poem to which is is appended. Its 
metre is unique in Browning, and stirs the heart 
with inexpressible force. In music it most closely 
resembles the swift thrilling roll of a snare drum, 
and can be read aloud in exact accord with that in- 
strument. Browning calls it The Householder, and 
of course it represents in his own life the antici- 
pated moment when the soul leaves its house to unite 
with its mate. Out of the catastrophe of death ap- 
pears a radiant vision which really seems too good 
to be true. 

"What, and Is it really you again ?" quoth I : 
"I again, what else did you expect ?" quoth She. 

The man is weary of his old patched up body, now 
no longer needed : weary of the noisy nuisances of 
life, and the tiresome and futile gabble of humanity: 
resentful, now that his spirit has actually survived 
death, when he remembers the scientific books he 
had read which almost struck despair in him. He 
petulantly says, 



LYRICS 89 

"If you knew but how I dwelt down here !" quoth I : 
"And was I so better off up there ?" quoth She. 

He is for immediate departure, leaving his empty- 
carcass where it lies; but she reminds him of 
the necessity for decent burial. Much is to be 
done before they can begin to enjoy together 
their new and freer existence. There is the body 
to be buried; the obituary notices to be written 
for the papers: the parson and undertaker to be 
summoned: the formalities of the funeral: the se- 
lection of a proper tombstone, with care for the 
name and accurate carving of the date of death 
thereupon : and finally a bit of verse in the way of 
final flourish. So these two spirits look on with im- 
patience at the funeral exercises, at the weeping 
friends left behind, and not until the coffin is under 
ground, are they at liberty to depart from terrestial 
scenes. If we do survive the death of the body, with 
what curious sensations must we regard the sol- 
emn ceremonies of its interment ! 

EPILOGUE TO FIFINE 

1872 

The Householder 

I 

Savage I was sitting in my house, late, lone : 
Dreary, weary with the long day's work : 



90 BROWNING 

Head of me, heart of me, stupid as a stone : 

Tongue-tied now, now blaspheming Hke a Turk; 

When, in a moment, just a knock, call, cry, 

Half a pang and all a rapture, there again were we ! — 

"What, and is it really you again ?" quoth I : 
'T again, what else did you expect ?" quoth She. 

II 

"Never mind, hie away from this old house — 

Every crumbling brick embrowned with sin and shame I 
Quick, in its corners ere certain shapes arouse ! 

Let them — every devil of the night — lay claim, 
Make and mend, or rap and rend, for me ! Good-bye 1 

God be their guard from disturbance at their glee, 
Till, crash, comes down the carcass in a heap !" quoth I : 

"Nay, but there's a decency required !" quoth She. 

Ill 

"Ah, but If you knew how time has dragged, days, nights I 

All the neighbour-talk with man and maid — such men ! 
All the fuss and trouble of street-sounds, window-sights : 

All the worry of flapping door and echoing roof ; and then, 
All the fancies . . . Who were they had leave, dared try 

Darker arts that almost struck despair in me? 
If you knew but how I dwelt down here !" quoth I : 

"And was I so better off up there?" quoth She. 

IV 

"Help and get it over ! Re-united to his wife 

(How draw up the paper lets the parish-people know?) 
Lies M., or N., departed from this life. 

Day the this or that, month and year the so and so. 
What i' the way of final flourish? Prose, verse? Try! 

Affliction sore long time he bore, or, what is it to be? 
Till God did please to grant him ease. Do end !" quoth I : 

"I end with— Love is all and Death is nought 1" quoth She. 



LYRICS 91 

The same thought — the dramatic contrast between 
the free spirit and its prison-house — is the basis of 
the two lyrics that serve as prologues to Pacchiarotto 
and to La Saisiaz. As Dry den's prefaces are far 
better than his plays, so Browning's Prologues to 
Pacchiarotto y to La Saisiaz, to The Two Poets of 
Croisic, to Jocoseria are decidedly superior in poetic 
art and beauty to the volumes they introduce. In- 
deed the prologue to The Two Poets of Croisic is 
one of the most beautiful and perfect lyrics in the 
English language. 

PROLOGUE 

1878 

I 

Such a starved bank of moss 

Till that May-morn, 
Blue ran the flash across : 

Violets were born ! 

II 

Sky — what a scowl of cloud 

Till, near and far, 
Ray on ray split the shroud 

Splendid, a star! 

Ill 

World — how it walled about 

Life with disgrace 
Till God's own smile came out: 

That was thy face! 



92 BROWNING 

PROLOGUE TO PACCHIAROTTO 
1876 



O the old wall here I How I could pass 

Life in a long Midsummer day, 
My feet confined to a plot of grass, 

My eyes from a wall not once away! 

II 

And lush and lithe do the creepers clothe 
Yon wall I watch, with a wealth of green : 

Its bald red bricks draped, nothing loth, 
In lappets of tangle they laugh between. 

Ill 

Now, what is it makes pulsate the robe? 

Why tremble the sprays? What life o'erbrims 
The body, — the house, no eye can probe, — 

Divined as, beneath a robe, the limbs? 

IV 

And there again 1 But my heart may guess 
Who tripped behind ; and she sang perhaps : 

So, the old wall throbbed, and its life's excess 
Died out and away in the leafy wraps. 



Wall upon wall are between us : life 
And song should away from heart to heart. 

I — prison-bird, with a ruddy strife 
At breast, and a lip whence storm-notes start- 



LYRICS 93 

VI 

Hold on, hope hard in the subtle thing 

That's spirit : though cloistered fast, soar free ; 

Account as wood, brick, stone, this ring 
Of the rueful neighbours, and — forth to thee 1 

PROLOGUE TO LA SAISIAZ 
1878 



Good, to forgive; 

Best, to forget! 

Living, we fret; 
Dying, we live. 
Fretless and free. 

Soul, clap thy pinion ! 

Earth have dominion, 
Body, o'er thee! 

II 

Wander at will, 
Day after day, — 
Wander away, 

Wandering still — 

Soul that canst soar I 
Body may slumber: 
Body shall cumber 

Soul-flight no more. 

Ill 

Waft of soul's wing! 

What lies above? 

Sunshine and Love, 
Skyblue and Spring! 



94 BROWNING 

Body hides — where ? 

Ferns of all feather, 

Mosses and heather. 
Yours be the care ! 

PROLOGUE TO JOCOSERIA 
1883 

Wanting is — what? 

Summer redundant, 

Blueness abundant, 

— Where is the blot ? 
Beamy the world, yet a blank all the same, 
— Framework which waits for a picture to frame 
What of the leafage, what of the flower? 
Roses embowering with nought they embower ! 
Come tlien, complete incompletion, O comer, 
Pant through the blueness, perfect the summer ! 

Breathe but one breath 

Rose-beauty above, 

And all that was death 

Grows life, grows love, 
Grows love ! 

NEVER THE TIME AND THE PLACE 

1883 

Never the time and the place 

And the loved one all together I 
This path — how soft to pacel 

This May — what magic weather ! 
Where is the loved one's face? 
In a dream that loved one's face meets mine, 
But the house is narrow, the place is bleak 
Where, outside, rain and wind combine 



LYRICS 95 

With a furtive ear, if I strive to speak, 

With a hostile eye at my flushing cheek, 
With a mahce that marks each word, each sign ! 
O enemy sly and serpentine, 

Uncoil thee from the waking man I 
Do I hold the Past 
Thus firm and fast 

Yet doubt if the Future hold I can? 
This path so soft to pace shall lead 
Thro' the magic of May to herself indeed ! 
Or narrow if needs the house must be, 
Outside are the storms and strangers : we— 
Oh, close, safe, warm sleep I and she, 
—I and she 1 



IV 



DRAMATIC LYRICS 

BROWNING'S poetic career extended from 
1833 to 1889, nearly sixty years of fairly 
continuous composition. We may make a three- 
fold division: first, the thirteen years before his 
marriage in 1846; second, the fifteen years of mar- 
ried life, closing in 1861 ; third, the remaining twen- 
ty-eight years. During the first period he published 
twelve works; during the second, two; during the 
third, eighteen. The fact that so little was pub- 
lished during the years when his wife was alive may 
be accounted for by the fact that the condition of 
her health required his constant care, and that after 
the total failure of Men and Women (1855) to at- 
tract any popular attention, Browning for some time 
spent most of his energy in clay-modelling, giving up 
poetry altogether. Not long before the death of 
Mrs. Browning, he was busy writing Prince Hohen- 
stiel-Schwangau, although he did not publish it un- 
til the right moment, which came in 1871. After 

96 



DRAMATIC LYRICS 97] 

the appearance of Dramatis Personce (1864), and 
The Ring and the Book (1868-9), Browning's fame 
spread like a prairie fire; and it was quite natural 
that his immense reputation was a sharp spur to 
composition. One is more ready to speak when one 
is sure of an audience. Capricious destiny, how- 
ever, willed that the books which sold the fastest 
after publication, were, with few exceptions, the 
least interesting and valuable of all the poet's per- 
formances. Perhaps he did not take so much care 
now that his fame was assured ; perhaps the fires in 
his own mind were dying; perhaps the loss of his 
wife robbed him of necessary inspiration, as it cer- 
tainly robbed him of the best critic he ever had, and 
the only one to whom he paid any serious attention. 
When we remember that some of the Dramatic Ro- 
mances, Luria, A Soul's Tragedy, Christmas-Eve, 
Men and Women, and some of the Dramatis Per- 
sonce were read by her in manuscript, and that The 
Ring and the Book was written in the shadow of 
her influence, we begin to realise how much she 
helped him. Their love-letters during the months 
that preceded their marriage indicate the excellence 
of her judgment, her profound and sympathetic 
understanding of his genius and his willingness to 
listen to her advice. He did not intend to publish 



98 BROWNING 

A SouVs Tragedy at all, though it is one of his most 
subtle and interesting dramas, and only did so at her 
request; part of the manuscript of Christmas-Eve 
is in her handwriting. 

It is worth remembering too that in later years 
Browning hated to write poetry, and nothing but a 
sense of duty kept him during the long mornings at 
his desk. He felt the responsibility of genius with- 
out its inspiration. 

Browning has given a little trouble to bibliogra- 
phers by redistributing the poems originally pub- 
lished in the three works. Dramatic Lyrics (1842), 
Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (1845), and Men 
and Women (1855). The Dra^natic Lyrics at first 
contained sixteen pieces; the Dramatic Romances 
and Lyrics twenty-three ; the Men and Women fifty- 
one. In the final arrangement the first of these in- 
cluded fifty ; the second, called simply Dramatic Ro- 
mances, twenty-five ; whilst the last was reduced to 
thirteen. He also changed the titles of many of the 
poems, revised the text somewhat, classified two sep- 
arate poems under one title, Claret and Tokay, and 
Here's to Nelson's Memory, under the heading Na- 
tionality in Drinks, and united the two sections of 
Saul in one poem. It is notable that he omitted not 
one, and indeed it is remarkable that with the excep- 



DRAMATIC LYRICS 99 

tion of The Boy and the Angel, A Lover's Quarrel, 
Mesmerism, and Another Way of Love, every poem 
in the long list has the indubitable touch of genius; 
and even these four are not the worst of Brown- 
ing's compositions. 

It would have seemed to us perhaps more fitting 
if Browning had grouped the contents of all three 
works under the one heading Men and Women; for 
that would fairly represent the sole subject of his 
efforts. Perhaps he felt that the title was too gen- 
eral, and as a matter of fact, it would apply equally 
well to his complete poetical works. I think, how- 
ever, that he especially loved the appellation Dra- 
matic Lyrics, for he put over half of the poems 
finally under that category. The word "dramatic" 
obsessed Browning. 

What is a dramatic lyric? When Tennyson pub- 
lished in 1842 his Ulysses, a Yankee farmer in 
America made in one sentence three remarks about 
it: a statement and two prophecies. He said that 
Ulysses belonged to a high class of poetry, destined 
to be the highest, and to be more cultivated in the 
next generation. Now Ulysses is both a dramatic 
lyric and a dramatic monologue, and Tennyson never 
wrote anything better than this poem. As it became 
increasingly evident that the nineteenth century 



100 BROWNING 

was not going to have a great literary dramatic 
movement on the stage, while at the same time the 
interest in human nature had never been keener, the 
poets began to turn their attention to the interpreta- 
tion of humanity by the representation of historical 
or imaginary individuals speaking : and their speech 
was to reveal the secrets of the human soul, in its 
tragedy and comedy, in its sublimity and baseness, 
in its nobility and folly. Later in life Tennyson 
cultivated sedulously the dramatic monologue; and 
Browning, the most original force in literature that 
the century produced, after abandoning his early 
attempts at success on the stage, devoted practically 
the entire strength of his genius to this form of 
poetry. Emerson was a wise man. 

In reshuffling the short poems in the three works 
mentioned above, it is not always easy to see the 
logic of the distribution and it would be interesting 
if we could know the reasons that guided the poet in 
the classification of particular poems. Thus it is 
perfectly clear why Incident of the French Camp, 
Count Gismond, and In a Gondola were taken from 
the Dramatic Lyrics and placed among the Dramatic 
Romances; it is easy to see why The Lost Leader 
and Home-Thoughts, from Abroad were taken from 
the Romances and placed among the Lyrics; it is 



DRAMATIC LYRICS 101 

not quite so clear why Rudel and Artemis Prologizes 
were taken from the Lyrics and classed among Men 
and Women, when nearly all the poems originally 
published under the latter head were changed to 
Lyrics and Romances. In changing How They 
Brought the Good News from the Dramatic Ro- 
mances, where it was originally published, to Dra- 
matic Lyrics, Browning probably felt that the lyrical 
sound of the piece was more important than the 
story: but it really is a dramatic romance. Fur- 
thermore, My Last Duchess would seem to fall more 
properly imder the heading Men and Women; 
Browning, however, took it from the Dramatic 
Lyrics and placed it among the Dramatic Romances, 
In most cases, however, the reason for the transfer 
of individual poems is clear; and a study of the 
classification is of positive assistance toward the un- 
derstanding of the piece. 

In the eight volumes published from 1841 to 1846, 
which Browning called Bells and Pomegranates, 
meaning simply Sound and Sense, Meat and Music, 
only two are collections of short poems and the 
other six contain exclusively plays — seven In all, 
two being printed together in the last volume. 
Browning intended the whole Bells and Pomegran- 
ates series to be devoted to the drama, as one may see 



102 BROWNING 

by the original preface to Pip pa Passes: but that 
drama and the next did not sell, and the publisher 
suggested that he include some short poems. This 
explains why the third volume is filled with lyrics ; 
and in a note published with it, Browning half apol- 
ogised for Avhat might seem a departure from his 
original plan, saying these two might properly fall 
under the head of dramatic pieces; being, although 
lyrical in expression, "always dramatic in principle, 
and so many utterances of so many imaginary per- 
sons, not mine." 

He means then by a dramatic lyric a poem that 
is short, that is musical, but that is absolutely not 
subjective — does not express or betray the writer's 
own ideas nor even his mood, as is done in Tenny- 
son's ideal lyric, Crossing the Bar. A dramatic 
lyric is a composition lyrical in form, and dramatic 
in subject-matter; remembering all the time that by 
dramatic we do not necessarily mean anything ex- 
citing but simply something objective, something 
entirely apart from the poet's own feelings. On the 
stage this is accomplished by the creation of sep- 
arate characters who in propria persona express 
views that may or may not be in harmony with the 
poet's own. Thus, Macbeth's speech, beginning 

Out, out, brief candle 1 



DRAMATIC LYRICS 103 

Is really a dramatic lyric; because it is lyrical in 
form, and it expresses views on the value of life 
which could hardly have been held by Shakespeare, 
though they seem eminently fitting from the lips of 
a man who had tried to gain the whole world by 
losing his soul, and had succeeded in losing both. 

In view of Browning's love for this form of verse, 
it is interesting to remember that the first two inde- 
pendent short poems that he ever wrote and retained 
in his works are both genuine dramatic lyrics. These 
are Porphyria's Lover and Johannes Agricola, 
printed in the Monthly Repository in 1836, when 
Browning was twenty- four years old. Thus early 
did he show both aptitude for this form and ex- 
cellence in it, for each of these pieces is a work of 
genius. They were meant to be studies in abnormal 
psychology, for they were printed together in the 
Dramatic Lyrics under the caption Madhouse Cells. 
Browning was very young then, and naturally 
thought a man who believed in predestination and a 
man who killed the woman he loved were both in- 
sane; but after a longer experience of life, and see- 
ing how many strange creatures walk the streets, he 
ceased to call these two men, obsessed by religion 
and obsessed by love, mad. If Porphyria's lover is 
mad, there is method in his madness. Her superior 



104 BROWNING 

social rank has stifled hitherto the instincts of the 
heart; she has never given her lover any favors; 
but to-night, at the dinner-dance, by one of those 
strange and inexplicable caprices that make Woman 
the very Genius of the Unexpected, she has a vision. 
In the midst of the lights and the laughter, she sees 
her lonely lover sitting dejectedly in his cold and 
cheerless cottage, thinking of her. She slips away 
from the gay company, trips through the pouring 
rain, and enters the dark room like an angel of light. 
After kindling a blazing fire in the grate, she kin- 
dles her lover's hope-dead heart; she draws him to 
her and places his head on her naked shoulder. Sud- 
denly a thought comes to him ; one can see the light 
of murder in his eyes. At this moment she is 
sublime, fit for Heaven : for the first time in her life, 
a noble impulse has triumphed over the debasing 
conventions of society; if he lets her go, she will 
surely fall from grace, and become a lost soul. He 
strangles her with her yellow hair, risking damna- 
tion for her salvation. So the quick and the dead 
sit together through the long night. 

PORPHYRIA'S LOVER 

1836 

The rain set early in to-night, 
The sullen wind was soon awake, 



, DRAMATIC LYRICS 105 

It tore the elm-tops down for spite, 

And did its worst to vex the lake : 

I listened with heart fit to break. 
When glided in Porphyria; straight 

She shut the cold out and the storm, 
And kneeled and made the cheerless grate 

Blaze up, and all the cottage warm ; 

Which done, she rose, and from her form 
Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl, 

And laid her soiled gloves by, untied 
Her hat and let the damp hair fall, 

And, last, she sat down by my side 

And called me. When no voice replied, 
She put my arm about her waist. 

And made her smooth white shoulder bare, 
And all her yellow hair displaced. 

And, stooping, made my cheek lie there, 

And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair, 
Murmuring how she loved me — she 

Too weak, for all her heart's endeavour, 
To set its struggling passion free 

From pride, and vainer ties dissever. 

And give herself to me for ever. 
But passion sometimes would prevail, 

Nor could to-night's gay feast restrain 
A sudden thought of one so pale 

For love of her, and all in vain : 

So, she was come through wind and rain. 
Be sure I looked up at her eyes 

Happy and proud ; at last I knew 
Porphyria worshipped me ; surprise 

Made my heart swell, and still it grew 

While I debated what to do. 
That moment she was mine, mine, fair. 

Perfectly pure and good : I found ^ 



106 BROWNING 

A thing to do, and all her hair 

In one long yellow string I wound 
Three times her little throat around, 

And strangled her. No pain felt she; 
I am quite sure she felt no pain. 

As a shut bud that holds a bee, 
I warily oped her lids : again 
Laughed the blue eyes without a stain. 

And I untightened next the tress 

About her neck ; her cheek once more 

Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss : 
I propped her head up as before, 
Only, this time my shoulder bore 

Her head, which droops upon it still : 
The smiling rosy little head. 

So glad it has its utmost will. 
That all it scorned at once is fled. 
And I, its love, am gained instead I 

Porphyria's love : she guessed not how 
Her darling one wish would be heard. 

And thus we sit together now, 
And all night long we have not stirred. 
And yet God has not said a word ! 

What is the meaning of that last enigmatical line ? 
Does it mean that the expected bolt from the sky 
has not fallen, that God approves of the murder? 
Or does it mean that the man is vaguely disap- 
pointed, that he had hoped to hear a voice from 
Heaven, saying, "This is my beloved son, in whom 
I am well pleased"? Or does it mean that the 



DRAMATIC LYRICS 107 

Power above is wholly indifferent, "when the sky, 
which noticed all, makes no disclosure" ? 

In Johannes Agricola, Browning wrote a lyric 
setting forth the strange and yet largely accepted 
doctrine that Almighty God before the foundations 
of the earth were laid, predestined a few of the 
coming population to everlasting bliss and the vast 
majority to eternal torture. This is by no means a 
meditation in a madhouse cell, as Browning first 
believed; but might logically be the reflections of a 
'nineteenth century Presbyterian clergyman, seated 
in his comfortable library. It is the ecstatic mystical 
joy of one who realises, that through no merit of 
his own, he is numbered among the elect. Sir 
Thomas Browne quaintly pictured to himself the 
surprise of the noble, upright men of antiquity, when 
they wake up in hell simply because they did not 
believe on One of whom they had never heard; so 
Johannes speculates on the ironical fate of monks, 
ascetics, women and children, whose lives were full 
of innocence and purity, who nevertheless reach ul- 
timately the lake of fire. Praise God for it! for if 
I could understand Him, I could not praise Him. 
How much more noble thi^ predestinating God is 
than one who should reward virtue, and thus make 
eternal bliss a ipatter of calculation and bargain ! 



108 BROWNING 

JOHANNES AGRICOLA IN MEDITATION 
1836 

There's heaven above, and night by night 

I look right through its gorgeous roof ; 
No suns and moons though e'er so bright 

Avail to stop me ; splendour-proof 

I keep the broods of stars aloof ; 
For I intend to get to God, 

For 'tis to God I speed so fast, 
For in God's breast, my own abode, 

Those shoals of dazzling glory passed, 

I lay my spirit down at last. 
I lie where I have always lain, 

God smiles as he has always smiled ; 
Ere suns and moons could wax and wane. 

Ere stars were thundergirt, or piled 

The heavens, God thought on me his child ; 
Ordained a life for me, arrayed 

Its circumstances every one 
To the minutest; ay, God said 

This head this hand should rest upon 

Thus, ere he fashioned star or sun. 
And having thus created me, 

Thus rooted me, he bade me grow. 
Guiltless for ever, like a tree 

That buds and blooms, nor seeks to know 

The law by which it prospers so : 
But sure that thought and word and deed 

All go to swell his love for me, 
Me, made because that love had need 

Of something irreversibly 

Pledged solely its content to be. 
Yes, yes, a tree which must ascend, 

No poison-gourd foredoomed to stoop ! 



DRAMATIC LYRICS 109 

I have God's warrant, could I blend 

All hideous sins, as in a cup. 

To drink the mingled venoms up ; 
Secure my nature will convert 

The draught to blossoming gladness fast : 
While sweet dews turn to the gourd's hurt, 

And bloat, and while they bloat it, blast, 

As from the first its lot was cast. 
For as I lie, smiled on, full-fed 

By unexhausted power to bless, 
I gaze below on hell's fierce bed, 

And those its waves of flame oppress. 

Swarming in ghastly wretchedness ; 
Whose life on earth aspired to be 

One altar-smoke, so pure ! — to win 
If not love like God's love for me. 

At least to keep his anger in ; 

And all their striving turned to sin. 
Priest, doctor, hermit, monk grown white 

With prayer, the broken-hearted nun, 
The martyr, the wan acolyte. 

The incense-swinging child, — undone 

Before God fashioned star or sun ! 
God, whom I praise ; how could I praise, 

If such as I might understand. 
Make out and reckon on his ways. 

And bargain for his love, and stand, 

Paying a price, at his right hand ? 

The religious exaltation of the opening lines 

There's heaven above, and night by night 
I look right through its gorgeous roof ; . . . 

For I intend to get to God, 
For 'tis to God I speed so fast. 

For in God's breast, my own abode, 



110 BROWNING 

Those shoals of dazzling glory, passed, 
I lay my spirit down at last 

reminds one infallibly of Tennyson*s beautiful dra- 
matic lyric, St. Agnes* Eve: 

Deep on the convent roof the snows 

Are sparkling to the moon : 
My breath to heaven like vapour goes, 

May my soul follow soon I 

It is interesting to remember that the former was 
published in 1836, the latter in 1837, and each in a 
periodical. 

Perhaps Browning attempted to show the dra- 
matic quality of his lyrics by finally placing at the 
very beginning the Cavalier Tunes and The Lost 
Leader; for the former voice in eloquent language 
the hatred of democratic ideas, and the latter, in 
language equally strenuous, is a glorification of de- 
mocracy. Imagine Browning himself saying what 
he places in the mouth of his gallant cavaliers — 
"Hampden to hell!" In the second, The Lost 
Leader, nothing was farther from Browning's own 
feelings than a personal attack on Wordsworth, 
whom he regarded with reverence ; in searching for 
an example of a really great character who had 
turned from the popular to the aristocratic party, 
he happened to think of the change from radicalism 



DRAMATIC LYRICS 111 

to conservatism exhibited by Wordsworth. Love 
for the lost leader is still strong in the breasts of 
his quondam followers who now must fight him; 
in Heaven he will not only be pardoned, he will be 
first there as he was always first here. In the fol- 
lowing lines, the prepositions are interesting: 

Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us, 
Burns, Shelley, were with us. 

Shakespeare was indeed of the common people, 
but so far as we can conjecture, certainly not for 
them; Milton was not of them, but was wholly for 
them, being indeed regarded as an anarchist ; Burns 
was a peasant, and Shelley a blue-blood, but both 
were with the popular cause. Browning himself, as 
we happen to know from one of his personal son- 
nets, was an intense Liberal in feeling. 

CAVALIER TUNES 
1842 

I. MARCHING ALONG 

I 

Kentish Sir B5mg stood for his King, 

Bidding the crop-headed Parliament swing : 

And, pressing a troop unable to stoop 

And see the rogues flourish and honest folk droop, 

Marched them along, fifty-score strong, 

Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song. 



112 BROWNING 

II 

God for King Charles ! Pym and such carles 

To the Devil that prompts 'em their treasonous paries 1 

Cavaliers, up 1 Lips from the cup, 

Hands from the pasty, nor bite take nor sup 

Till you're — 

Chorus. — Marching along, fifty-score strong, 

Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song. 

Ill 

Hampden to hell, and his obsequies* knell 
Serve Hazelrig, Fiennes, and young Harry as well ! 
England, good cheer ! Rupert is near 1 
Kentish and loyalists, keep we not here 

Chorus. — Marching along, fifty-score strong, 

Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song? 

IV 

Then, God for King Charles ! Pym and his snarls 
To the Devil that pricks on such pestilent carles I 
Hold by the right, you double your might ; 
So, onward to Nottingham, fresh for the fight, 
Chorus. — March we along, fifty-score strong, 

Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song! 

II. GIVE A rouse 

I 

King Charles, and who'll do him right now? 
King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now? 
Give a rouse : here's, in hell's despite now, 
King Charles I 

II 

Who gave me the goods that went since? 
Who raised me the house that sank once ? 



DRAMATIC LYRICS 113 

Wlio helped me to gold I spent since? 
Who found me in wine you drank once? 

Chorus. — King Charles, and who'll do him right now? 

King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now? 

Give a rouse: here's, in hell's despite now. 

King Charles! 

Ill 

To whom used my boy George quaff else, 

By the old fool's side that begot him? 

For whom did he cheer and laugh else, 

While Noll's damned troopers shot him? 

Chorus. — King Charles, and who'll do him right now? 
King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now?, 
Give a rouse: here's, in hell's despite now. 
King Charles! 

III. BOOT AND SADDLE 

I 

Boot, saddle, to horse, and away! 
Rescue my castle before the hot day 
Brightens to blue from its silvery grey, 

Chorus. — Boot, saddle, to horse, and away! 

II 

Ride past the suburbs, asleep as you'd say; 
Many's the friend there, will listen and pray 
"God's luck to gallants that strike up the lay — 
Chorus. — "Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!" 

Ill 

Forty miles off, like a roebuck at bay, 
Flouts Castle Brancepeth the Roundheads' array : 
Who laughs, "Good fellows ere this, by my fay. 
Chorus. — "Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!" 



114 BROWNING 

IV 

Who ? My wife Gertrude ; that, honest and gay, 
Laughs when you talk of surrendering, "Nay! 
"I've better counsellors ; what counsel they ? 

Chorus. — ''Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!" 

THE LOST LEADER 
1845 



Just for a handful of silver he left us, 

Just for a riband to stick in his coat— = 
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us. 

Lost all the others she lets us devote ; 
They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver, 

So much was theirs who so little allowed : 
How all our copper had gone for his service ! 

Rags — were they purple, his heart had been proud 1 
We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him, 

Lived in his mild and magnificent eye. 
Learned his great language, caught his clear accents. 

Made him our pattern to live and to die I 
Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us. 

Burns, Shelley, were with us, — they watch from their 
graves ! 
He alone breaks from the van and the freemen, 

— He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves ! 

II 

We shall march prospering, — not thro' his presence; 

Songs may inspirit us, — not from his lyre; 
Deeds will be done, — while he boasts his quiescence, 

Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire : 
Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more. 

One task more declined, one more footpath untrod. 



DRAMATIC LYRICS 115 

One more devlls'-triumph and sorrow for angels, 

One wrong more to man, one more insult to God 1 
Life's night begins : let him never come back to us I 

There would be doubt, hesitation and pain. 
Forced praise on our part — the glimmer of twilight. 

Never glad confident morning again I 
Best fight on well, for we taught him — strike gallantly, 

Menace our heart ere we master his own ; 
Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us. 

Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne ! 

The poem Cristina (1842), while not very re- 
markable as poetry, is notable because it contains 
thus early in Browning's career, four of his most 
important doctrines. The more one studies Brown- 
ing, the more one is convinced that the poet's aston- 
ishing mental vigor is shown not in the number 
and variety of his ideas, but rather in the number 
and variety of illustrations of them. I can not at 
this moment think of any poet, dramatist or novelist 
who has invented so many plots as Browning. He 
seems to present to us a few leading ideas in a vast 
series of incarnations. Over and over again the 
same thoughts, the same doctrines are repeated ; but 
the scenery, the situations, and the characters are 
never alike. Here is where he remains true to the 
theory set forth in Transcendentalism; the poet 
should not produce thoughts but rather concrete 
images of them; or, as he says in the closing lines 



116 BROWNING 

of The Ring and the Book, Art must do the thing 
that breeds the thought. 

In Cristina, four of Browning's fundamental ar- 
ticles of faith are expressed: the doctrine of the 
elective affinities; the doctrine of success through 
failure; the doctrine that time is measured not by 
the clock and the calendar, but by the intensity of 
spiritual experiences; the doctrine that life on earth 
is a trial and a test, the result of which will be seen 
in the higher and happier development when the 
soul is freed from the limitations of time and space. 

The expression "elective affinities" as applied to 
human beings was first brought into literature, I 
believe, by no less a person than Goethe, who in his 
novel, published in 1809, which he called Elective 
Affinities (Wahlverwandschaften) , showed the tre- 
mendous force which tends to draw together cer- 
tain persons of opposite sexes. The term was taken 
from chemistry, where an elective affinity means the 
"force by which the atoms of bodies of dissimilar 
nature unite" ; elective affinity is then simply a chem- 
ical force. 

In Goethe's novel, Charlotte thus addresses the 
Captain : "Would you tell me briefly what is meant 
here by Affinities?" The Captain replied, "In all 
natural objects with which we are acquainted, we 



DRAMATIC LYRICS 117 

observe Immediately that they have a certain rela- 
tion." Charlotte: "Let me try and see whether I 
can understand where you are bringing me. As 
everything has a reference to itself, so it must have 
some relation to others." Edward interrupts : "And 
that will be different according to the natural differ- 
ences of the things themselves. Sometimes they will 
meet like friends and old acquaintances; they will 
come rapidly together, and unite without either hav- 
ing to alter itself at all — as wine mixes with water." 
Charlotte : "One can almost fancy that in these sim- 
ple forms one sees people that one is acquainted 
with." The Captain: "As soon as our chemical 
chest arrives, we can show you a number of enter- 
taining experiments, which will give you a clearer 
idea than words, and names, and technical expres- 
sions." Charlotte: "It appears to me that if you 
choose to call these strange creatures of yours re- 
lated, the relationship is not so much a relationship 
of blood as of soul or of spirit." The Captain : "We 
had better keep to the same instances of which we 
have already been speaking. Thus, what we call 
limestone is a more or less pure calcareous earth in 
combination with a delicate acid, which is familiar 
to us in the form of a gas. Now, if we place a piece 
of this stone in diluted sulphuric acid, this will 



118 BROWNING 

take possession of the lime, and appear with it in 
the form of gypsum, the gaseous acid at the same 
time going off in vapour. Here is a case of separa- 
tion : a combination arises, and we beheve ourselves 
now justified in applying to it the words 'Elective 
Affinity;' it really looks as if one relation had been 
deliberately chosen in preference to another." Char- 
lotte : "Forgive me, as I forgive the natural philoso- 
pher. I can not see any choice in this ; I see a nat- 
ural necessity rather, and scarcely that. Opportunity 
makes relations as it makes thieves : and as long as 
the talk is only of natural substances, the choice ap- 
pears to be altogether in the hands of the chemist 
who brings the creatures together. Once, however, 
let them be brought together, and then God have 
mercy on them." The scientific conversation is 
summed up by their all agreeing that the chemical 
term "elective affinities" can properly be applied in 
analogy to human beings. 

An elective affinity as applied to men and women 
may result in happiness or misery ; or may be frus- 
trated by a still superior prudential or moral force. 
The law of elective affinity being a force, it is nat- 
urally unaware of any human artificial obstacles, 
such as a total difference in social rank, or the pre- 
vious marriage of one or both of the parties. If 



DRAMATIC LYRICS 119 

two independent individuals meet and are drawn 
together by the law of elective affinities, they may 
marry and live happily forever after; if another 
marriage has already taken place, as in Goethe's 
story, the result may be tragedy. In Cristina, the 
elective affinities assert their force between a queen 
and a private individual ; the result is, at least tem- 
porarily, unfortunate for the simple reason that the 
lady, although drawn toward the man by the work- 
ings of this mysterious force, is controlled even more 
firmly by the bondage of social convention; she be- 
haves in a contrary manner to that shown by the 
stooping lady in Maurice Hewlett's story. This 
force needs only one moment, one glance, to assert 
its power : 

She should never have looked at me 
If she meant I should not love her I 

Love in Browning is often love at first sight; no 
prolonged acquaintance is necessary; not even a 
spoken word, or any physical contact. 

Doubt you whether 
This she felt as, looking at me. 
Mine and her souls rushed together? 

In Tennyson's Locksley Hall (published the same 
year) , contact was important : 



120 BROWNING 

And our spirits rushed together at the touching of the lips. 

Browning's portrayal of love shows that it can 
be a wireless telegraphy, that, in the instance of 
Cristina and her lover, exerted its force across a 
crowded room; in The Statue and the Bust, it is 
equally powerful across a public square in Florence. 
The glance, or as Donne expresses it, the "twisted 
eye-beams," is an important factor in Browning's 
poetry — sufficient to unite two souls throughout all 
eternity, as it does in Tristan und Isolde, Browning 
repeats his favorite doctrine of the elective affini- 
ties in Evelyn Hope, Count Gismond, In a Gondola, 
Dis Aliter Visum, Youth and Art, and other poems; 
and its noblest expression is perhaps in that won- 
derful scene in the crowded theatre at Arezzo; 
whilst the flippant audience are gazing at a silly mu- 
sical comedy, the sad eyes of Pompilia encounter 
the grave, serious regard of Caponsacchi, and the 
two young hearts are united forever. 

Another leading idea in Browning's philosophy is 
Success in Failure. This paradox is indeed a cor- 
ner-stone in the construction of his thought. Every 
noble soul must fail in life, because every noble 
soul has an ideal. We may be encouraged by tem- 
porary successes, but we must be inspired by failure. 
Browning can forgive any daring criminal; but he 



DRAMATIC LYRICS 121 

can not forgive the man who is selfishly satisfied 
with his attainments and his position, and thus ac- 
cepts compromises with life. The soul that ceases 
to grow is utterly damned. The damnation of con- 
tentment Is shown with beauty and fervor in one 
of Browning's earliest lyrics, Over the Sea Our 
Galleys Went. The voyagers were weary of the 
long journey, they heeded not the voice of the pilot 
Conscience, they accommodated their ideals to their 
personal convenience. The reason why Browning 
could not forgive Andrea was not because he was 
Andrea del Sarto, the son of a tailor; it was be- 
cause he was known as the Faultless Painter, be- 
cause he could actually realise his dreams. The text 
of that whole poem is found in the line 

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp. 

In Cristina, the man's love is not rewarded here, 
he fails ; but he has aimed high, he has loved a queen. 
He will always love her — in losing her he has found 
a guiding principle for his own life, which will lead 
him ever up and on. 

She has lost me, I have gained her j 

Her soul's mine : and thus, grown perfect, 

I shall pass my life's remainder. 

Her body I have lost : some other man will pos- 



122 BROWNING 

sess that : but her soul I gained in the moment when 
our eyes met, and my Hfe has reached a higher plane 
and now has a higher motive. In failure I reach 
real success. 

This doctrine, illustrated repeatedly in Brown- 
ing's works, is stated explicitly in Rabbi Ben Ezra: 

For thence, — a paradox 

Which comforts while it mocks, — ■ 
Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail : 

What I aspired to be, 

And was not, comforts me : 
A brute I might have been, but would not sink i* the scale. 

The thought that life is not measured by length 
of days is brought out clearly in Cristina. We con- 
stantly read in the paper interviews with centena- 
rians, who tell us how to prolong our lives by having 
sufficient sleep, by eating moderately, by refraining 
from worry. But, as a writer in a southern journal 
expressed it. Why do these aged curiosities never tell 
us what use they have made of this prolonged ex- 
istence ? Mark Twain said cheerfully, "Methuselah 
lived nine hundred and sixty-nine years; but what 
of that? There was nothing doing." No drama on 
the stage is a success unless it has what we call a 
supreme moment; and the drama of our individual 
lives can not be really interesting or important un- 



DRAMATIC LYRICS 123 

less it has some moments when we live intensely, 
when we live longer than some persons live in years ; 
moments that settle our purpose and destiny. 

Oh, we're sunk enough here, God knows I 

But not quite so sunk that moments, 
Sure, tho* seldom, are denied us, 

When the spirit's true endowments 
Stand out plainly from its false ones, 

And apprise it if pursuing 
Or the right way or the wrong way. 

To its triumph or undoing. 
There are flashes struck from midnights, 

There are fire-flames noondays kindle. 
Whereby piled-up honours perish. 

Whereby swollen ambitions dwindle. 

An American public man who one day fell in pub- 
lic esteem as far as Lucifer, said that it had taken 
him fifty years to build up a great reputation, and 
that he had lost it all in one forenoon. The dying 
courtier in Paracelsus had such a moment. 

Finally, in Cristina, we find that ardent belief in 
a future life that lifts its head so often and so reso- 
lutely in Browning's poetry, and on which, as we 
shall see later, his optimism is founded. Science 
tells us that the matter of which the universe is 
composed is indestructible; Browning believes even 
more strongly in the permanence of spirit. Aspira- 
tion, enthusiasm, love would not be given to us to 



124 BROWNING 

have their purposes broken off, not if this is a ra- 
tional and economic universe; the important thing 
is not to have our hopes fulfilled here, the important 
thing is to keep hoping. Such love as the man had 
for Cristina must eventually find its full satisfaction 
so long as it remains the guiding principle of his 
life, which will serve as a test of his tenacity. 

Life will just hold out the proving 
Both our powers, alone and blended : 
And then, come next life quickly 1 
This world's use will have been ended. 

Precisely the same situation and the same philo- 
sophical result of it are illustrated in the exquisite 
lyric, Evelyn Hope. The lover is frustrated not by 
social distinctions, but by death. The girl is lost to 
him here, but the power of love is not quenched nor 
even lessened by this disaster. The man's ardor 
will steadily increase during the remaining years 
of his earthly existence; and then his soul will start 
out confident on its quest. 

God above 
Is great to grant, as mighty to make. 
And creates the love to reward the love : 

I claim you still, for my own love's sake I 
Delayed it may be for more lives yet, 

Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few : 
Much is to learn, much to forget, 
Ere the time be come for taking you. 



DRAMATIC LYRICS 125 

This doctrine, that earthly existence is a mere 
test of the soul to determine its fitness for entering 
upon an eternal and freer stage of development, is 
frequently set forth in Browning. The apostle John 
makes it quite clear in A Death in the Desert; and in 
Abt Vogler, the inspired musician sings 

And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence 
For the fulness of the days? Have we withered or agon- 
ised? 
Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue 
thence ? 
Why rushed the discords in but that harmony might be 
prized ? 

From the above discussion it should be plain that 
the short poem Cristina deserves patient and intense 
study, for it contains in the form of a dramatic lyric, 
some of Browning's fundamental ideas. 

CRISTINA 

1842 

I 

She should never have looked at me 

If she meant I should not love her ! 
There are plenty . . . men, you call such, 

I suppose . . . she may discover 
All her soul to, if she pleases, 

And yet leave much as she found them : 
But I'm not so, and she knew it 

When she fixed me, glancing round them. 



126 BROWNING 

II 

What? To fix me thus meant nothing? 

But I can't tell (there's my weakness) 
What her look said ! — no vile cant, sure. 

About "need to strew the bleakness 
"Of some lone shore with its pearl-seed. 

"That the sea feels" — no "strange yearning 
"That such souls have, most to lavish 

"Where there's chance of least returning." 

Ill 

Oh, we're sunk enough here, God knows 1 

But not quite so sunk that moments, 
Sure tho' seldom, are denied us, 

When the spirit's true endowments 
Stand out plainly from its false ones. 

And apprise it if pursuing 
Or the right way or the wrong way. 

To its triumph or undoing. 

IV 

There are flashes struck from midnights. 

There are fire-flames noondays kindle. 
Whereby piled-up honours perish, 

Whereby swollen ambitions dwindle, 
While just this or that poor impulse, 

Which for once had play unstifled. 
Seems the sole work of a life-time 

That away the rest have trifled. 

V 

Doubt you if, in some such moment. 
As she fixed me, she felt clearly, 

Ages past the soul existed. 

Here an age 'tis resting merely. 



DRAMATIC LYRICS J2Z 

And hence fleets again for ages, 

While the true end, sole and single, 
It stops here for is, this love-way, 

With some other soul to mingle? 

VI 

Else it loses what it lived for, 

And eternally must lose it; 
Better ends may be in prospect, 

Deeper blisses (if you choose it), 
But this life's end and this love-bliss 

Have been lost here. Doubt you whether 
This she felt as, looking at me, 

Mine and her souls rushed together? 

VII 

Oh, observe! Of course, next moment, 

The world's honours, in derision, 
Trampled out the light for ever : 

Never fear but there's provision 
Of the devil's to quench knowledge 

Lest we walk the earth in rapture ! 
— Making those who catch God's secret 

Just so much more prize their capture! 

VIII 

Such am I : the secret's mine now ! 

She has lost me, I have gained her ; 
Her soul's mine : and thus, grown perfect, 

I shall pass my life's remainder. 
Life will just hold out the proving 

Both our powers, alone and blended : 
And then, come the next life quickly ! 

This world's use will have been ended. 



128 BROWNING 

SONG FROM PARACELSUS 
1835 

Over the sea our galleys went, 
With cleaving prows in order brave 
To a speeding wind and a bounding wave, 

A gallant armament : 
Each bark built out of a forest-tree 

Left leafy and rough as first it grew, 
And nailed all over the gaping sides, 
Within and without, with black bull-hides. 
Seethed in fat and suppled in flame, 
To bear the playful billows' game : 
So, each good ship was rude to see, 
Rude and bare to the outward view, 

But each upbore a stately tent 
Where cedar pales in scented row 
Kept out the flakes of the dancing brine. 
And an awning drooped the mast below, 
In fold on fold of the purple fine, 
That neither noontide nor starshine 
Nor moonlight cold which maketh mad. 

Might pierce the regal tenement. 
When the sun dawned, oh, gay and glad 
We set the sail and plied the oar ; 
But when the night-wind blew like breath. 
For joy of one day's voyage more, 
We sang together on the wide sea, 
Like men at peace on a peaceful shore ; 
Each sail was loosed to the wind so free. 
Each helm made sure by the twilight star, 
And in a sleep as calm as death, 
We, the voyagers from afar. 

Lay stretched along, each weary crew 
In a circle round its wondrous tent 



DRAMATIC LYRICS 129 

Whence gleamed soft light and curled rich scent, 

And with light and perfume, music too : 
So the stars wheeled round, and the darkness past. 
And at morn we started beside the mast, 
And still each ship was sailing fast. 

Now, one morn, land appeared — a speck 
Dim trembling betwixt sea and sky : 
"Avoid it," cried our pilot, "check 

"The shout, restrain the eager eyel" 
But the heaving sea was black behind 
For many a night and many a day, 
And land, though but a rock, drew nigh ; 
So, we broke the cedar pales away, 
Let the purple awning flap in the wind, 

And a statue bright was on every deck 1 
We shouted, every man of us. 
And steered right into the harbour thus, 
With pomp and paean glorious. 

A hundred shapes of lucid stone I 

All day we built its shrine for each, 
A shrine of rock for every one. 
Nor paused till in the westering sun 

We sat together on the beach 
To sing because our task was done. 
When lo ! what shouts and merry songs I 
What laughter all the distance stirs 1 
A loaded raft with happy throngs 
Of gentle islanders ! 
"Our isles are just at hand," they cried, 

"Like cloudlets faint in even sleeping: 
"Our temple-gates are opened wide, 

"Our olive-groves thick shade are keeping 
"For these majestic forms" — they cried. 



130 BROWNING 

Oh, then we awoke with sudden start 
From our deep dream, and knew, too late, 
How bare the rock, how desolate, 
Which had received our precious freight : 

Yet we called out — "Depart ! 
"Our gifts, once given, must here abide. 

"Our work is done ; we have no heart 
"To mar our work," — we cried. 

EVELYN HOPE 
1855 
I 
Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead I 

Sit and watch by her side an hour. 
That is her book-shelf, this her bed ; 

She plucked that piece of geranium-flower. 
Beginning to die too, in the glass; 

Little has yet been changed, I think: 
The shutters are shut, no light may pass 
Save two long rays thro' the hinge's chink. 

II 

Sixteen years old when she died I 

Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name ; 
It was not her time to love ; beside, 

Her life had many a hope and aim. 
Duties enough and little cares, 

And now was quiet, now astir. 
Till God's hand beckoned unawares, — • 

And the sweet white brow is all of her. 
Ill 
Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope? 

What, your soul was pure and true, 
The good stars met in your horoscope. 

Made you of spirit, fire and dew — 



DRAMATIC LYRICS 131 

And, just because I was thrice as old 
And our paths in the world diverged so wide. 

Each was nought to each, must I be told ? 
We were fellow mortals, nought beside ? 

IV 

No, indeed ! for God above 

Is great to grant, as mighty to make. 
And creates the love to reward the love : 

I claim you still, for my own love's sake 1 
Delayed it may be for more lives yet, 

Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few : 
Much is to learn, much to forget 

Ere the time be come for taking you. 



But the time will come, — at last it will. 

When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say) 
In the lower earth, in the years long still. 

That body and soul so pure and gay? 
Why your hair was amber, I shall divine. 

And your mouth of your own geranium's red— 
And what you would do with me, in fine. 

In the new life come in the old one's stead. 

VI 

I have lived (I shall say) so much since then, 

Given up myself so many times. 
Gained me the gains of various men. 

Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes ; 
Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope, 

Either I missed or itself missed me: 
And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope I 

What is the issue? let us see! 



132 BROWNING < 

VII 
I loved you, Evelyn, all the while. 

My heart seemed full as it could hold ? 
There was place and to spare for the frank young smile, 

And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold. 
So, hush, — I will give you this leaf to keep : 

See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand ! 
There, that is our secret : go to sleep ! 

You will wake, and remember, and understand. 

The dramatic lyric in two parts called Meeting 
at Night and Parting at Morning contains only six- 
teen lines and is a flawless masterpiece. Of the four 
dimensions of mathematics, one only has nothing to 
do with poetry. The length of a poem is of no im- 
portance in estimating its value. I do not fully un- 
derstand what is meant by saying that a poem is 
too long or too short. It depends entirely on the 
art with which the particular subject is treated. A 
short poem of no value is too long; a long poem of 
genius is not too long. Richardson's Clarissa in 
eight volumes is not too long, as is proved by the 
fact that the numerous attempts to abridge it are all 
failures; whereas many short stories in our maga- 
zines are far too long. Browning's Night and Morn- 
ing is not too short, because it contains in sixteen 
lines everything necessary; The Ring and the Book 
is not too long, because the twenty thousand and odd 
lines are all needed to make the study of testimony 



DRAMATIC LYRICS 133 

absolutely complete. But whilst the mathematical 
dimension of length is not a factor in poetry, the 
dimensions of breadth and depth are of vital im- 
portance, and the mysterious fourth dimension is the 
quality that determines whether or not a poem is a 
work of genius. Poen^ of the highest imagination 
can not be measured at all except in the fourth di- 
mension. The first part of Browning's lyric is no- 
table for its shortness, its breadth and its depth ; the 
second part possesses these qualities even more no- 
tably, and also takes the reader's thoughts into a 
world entirely outside the limits of time and space. 

Browning has often been called a careless writer 
and although he maintained that the accusation was 
untrue, the condition of some of the manuscripts he 
sent to the press — notably Mr. Sludge, the Medium 
— is proof positive that he did not work at each one 
of his poems at his highest level of patient industry. 
He was however in general a fastidious artist ; much 
more so than is commonly supposed. He was one 
of our greatest impromptu poets, like Shakespeare, 
writing hot from the brain; he was not a polisher 
and reviser, like Chaucer and Tennyson. But he 
studied with care the sound of his words. Many 
years ago, Mrs. Le Moyne, who has done so much 
to increase the number of intelligent Browning 



134 BROWNING 

lovers in America, met the poet in Europe, and told 
him she would like to recite to him one of his own 
poems. "Go ahead, my dear." So she began to re- 
peat in her beautiful voice Meeting at Night; she 
spoke the third line 

And the little startled waves that leap 

"Stop!" said Browning, "that isn't right." She 
then learned from him the sharp difference between 
"little startled waves" as she read it, and "startled 
little waves" as he wrote it. He was trying to pro- 
duce the effect of a warm night on the beach with 
no wind, where the tiny wavelets simply crumble in 
a brittle fashion on the sand. "Startled little waves" 
produces this effect ; "little startled waves" does not. 

The impressionistic colors in this poem add much 
to its effect ; the grey sea, the black land, the yellow 
moon, the fiery ringlets, the blue spurt of the match, 
the golden light of morning. The sounds and smells 
are realistic ; one hears the boat cut harshly into the 
slushy sand; the sharp scratch of the match; one in- 
hales the thick, heavy odor radiating from the sea- 
scented beach that has absorbed all day the hot 
rays of the sun. 

It is probable that the rendezvous is not at dusk, 
&s is commonly supposed, but at midnight. Owen 



DRAMATIC LYRICS 135 

Wister, in his fine novel, The Virginian, speaks of 
the lover's journey as taking place at dusk. Now 
the half-moon could not scientifically be low at that 
early hour, and although most poets care nothing at 
all for the moon except as a decorative object, 
Browning was generally precise in such matters. An 
American poet submitted to the Century Magazine 
a poem that was accepted, the last line of each stanza 
reading 

And in the west the waning moon hangs low. 

One of the editorial staff remembered that the 
waning moon does not hang low in the west; he 
therefore changed the word to "weary," which made 
the poet angry. He insisted that he was a poet, not 
a man of science, and vowed that he would place his 
moon exactly where he chose. The editors replied, 
"You can have a waning moon in the west in some 
magazines, perhaps, but you can not have it there 
in the Century/' So it was published "weary," as 
any one may see who has sufficient time and patience. 
Furthermore the contrast in this poem is not be- 
tween evening and morning, but between night and 
morning. The English commonly draw a distinc- 
tion between evening and night that we do not ob- 
serve in America. Pippa Passes is divided into four 



136 BROWNING 

sections, Morning, Noon, Evening, Night. Fur- 
thermore the meeting is a clandestine one; not the 
first one, for the man's soliloquy of his line of march 
shows how often he has travelled this way before, 
and now his eager mind, leaping far ahead of his 
feet, repeats to him each stage of the journey. The 
cottage is shrouded in absolute darkness until the 
lover's tap is heard; then comes the sound and the 
sight of the match, and the sudden thrill of the mad 
embrace, when the wild heart-beats are louder than 
the love-whispers. 

The dramatic contrast in this poem is between the 
man's feelings at night, and his mood in the morn- 
ing. Both parts of the lyric, therefore, come from 
the man's heart. It is absurd to suppose, as many 
critics seem to think, that the second part is uttered 
by the woman. Such -a mistake could never have 
arisen if it had not been for the word "him" in the 
penultimate line, which does not of course, refer to 
the man, but to the sun. To have the woman repeat 
in her heart these lines not only destroys the true 
philosophy of life set forth in the lyric, but the last 
reflection. 

And the need of a world of men for me 
would seem to make her taste rather catholic for 
an ideal sweetheart. 



DRAMATIC LYRICS 137 

The real meaning of the poem is simply this : The 
passionate intensity of love can not be exaggerated; 
in the night's meeting all other thoughts, duties, and 
pleasures are as though they, were not ; but with the 
day comes the imperious call of life and even if the 
woman could be content to live forever with her 
lover in the lonely cottage, he could not; he loves 
her honestly with fervor and sincerity, but he 
simply must go out into the world where men are, 
and take his share of the excitement and the strug- 
gle; he would soon be absolutely miserable if ma- 
rooned from life, even with the woman he loves. 
Those novels that represent a man as having no in- 
terest in life but love are false to human nature. In 
this poem Browning represents facts as they are; 
it is not simply that the man wants to go out and 
live among other men, it is a natural law that he 
must, as truly a natural law^ as gravitation. 

And straight was a path of gold for him, 
And the need of a world of men for me. 

Just as the sun must take his prescribed course 
through the sky, so must I run my circle of duties 
in the world of men. It is not a moral call of duty; 
it is the importunate pull of necessity. 

There is still the possibility of another interpreta- 
tion of the last line, though I think the one just given 



138 BROWNING 

IS correct, "I need the world of men; it is a natural 
law." Now it is just possible that we could interpret 
"need" in another sense, with an inversion; "the 
world of men needs me, and I must go to do my 
share." This would make the man perhaps nobler, 
but surely not so natural ; indeed it would sound like 
a priggish excuse to leave his mistress. I have never 
quite surrendered to the cavalier's words 

I could not love thee, dear, so much, 
Loved I not Honour more. 

Are we sure it is honor, and not himself, he loves 
more? 

It is impossible to improve on the Cowboy's com- 
ment on these lines in Mr. Wister's Virginian; after 
Molly has read them aloud to the convalescing male, 
he remarks softly, "That is very, very true." 
Molly does not see why the Virginian admires these 
verses so much more than the others. *T could 
scarcely explain," says he, "but that man does know 
something." Molly wants to know if the lovers 
had quarrelled. "Oh, no! he will come back after 
he has played some more of the game." "The 
game?" "Life, ma'am. Whatever he was adoin' in 
the world of men. That's a bed-rock piece, ma'am." 

The Virginian is much happier in his literary crit- 



DRAMATIC LYRICS 139 

icism of this lyric than he is of the Good News or of 
the Incident of the French Camp; in the latter in- 
stance, he misses the point altogether. The boy was 
not a poseur. The boy was so happy to think he 
had actually given his life for his master that he 
smilingly corrected Napoleon's cry "You're 
wounded !" It is as though one should congratulate 
an athletic contestant, and say "My felicitations! 
you won the second prize!" "No, indeed: I won 
the First." 

Night and Morning suggests so many thoughts 
that we could continue our comments indefinitely; 
but time suffices for only one more. The nature 
picture of the dawn is absolutely perfect. 

Round the cape of a sudden came the sea. 

He does not say that finally the cape became visi- 
ble, but that the sea suddenly came round the cape. 
Any one who has stood on the ocean-shore before 
dawn, and gazed along the indented coast in the 
grey light, has observed the precise effect mentioned 
in these words. At first one sees only the blur of 
land where the cape is, and nothing beyond it ; sud- 
denly the light increases, and the sea actually ap- 
pears to come around the point. 



140 BROWNING 

MEETING AT NIGHT 

1845 

The grey sea and the long black land ; 
And the yellow half-moon large and low ; 
And the startled little waves that leap 
In fiery ringlets from their sleep, 
As I gain the cove with pushing prow, 
And quench its speed i* the slushy sand. 

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach; 

Three fields to cross till a farm appears ; 

A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch 

And blue spurt of a lighted match. 

And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears, 

Than the two hearts beating each to each 1 

PARTING AT MORNING 

Round the cape of a sudden came the sea. 
And the sun looked over the mountain's rim : 
And straight was a path of gold for him. 
And the need of a world of men for me. 

It is interesting to remember that Browning, of 
all poets most intellectual, should be so predom- 
inantly the poet of Love. This passion is the motive 
power of his verse, as he believed it to be the motive 
power of the universe. He exhibits the love of men 
and women in all its manifestations, from baseness 
and folly to the noblest heights of self-renuncia- 
tion. It is natural that the most masculine and the 
most vigorous and the most intellectual of all our 



DRAMATIC LYRICS 141 

poets should devote his powers mainly to the repre- 
sentation of love. For love is the essence of force, 
and does not spring from effeminate weakness or 
febrile delicacy. Any painter can cover a huge 
canvas, but, as has been observed, only the strong 
hand can do the fine and tender work. To discuss 
at length the love-poems of Browning would take 
us far beyond the limits of this volume; but certain 
of the dramatic lyrics may be selected to illustrate 
salient characteristics. As various poets in making 
portraits emphasise what is to them the most ex- 
pressive features, the eyes or the lips, so Browning, 
the poet of the mind, loves best of all in his women 
and men, the Brow. 
In Evelyn Hope, 

And the sweet white brow is all of her. 

In The Last Ride Together, 

My mistress bent that brow of hers. 

In By the Fireside, 

Reading by firelight, that great brow 
And the spirit-small hand propping it. 

In -The Statue and the Bust, 

Hair in heaps lay heavily 
Over a pale brow spirit-pure. 



142 BROWNING 

In Count Gismond, 

They, too, so beauteous ! Each a queen 
By virtue of her brow and breast. 

And the wonderful description of Pompilla by 
Caponsacchi : 

Her brow had not the right line, leaned too much, 
Painters would say ; they like the straight-up Greek : 
This seemed bent somewhat with an invisible crown 
Of martyr and saint, not such as art approves. 

In Eurydice, 

But give them me, the mouth, the eyes, the brow ! 

In Count Gismond, 

Our elder boy has got the clear 
Great brow. 

In The Statue and the Bust, 

On his steady brow and quiet mouth. 

His ideally beautiful women generally have yel- 
low hair. The lady In a Gondola had coiled hair, *'a 
round smooth cord of gold." In Evelyn Hope, the 
''hair's young gold:" in Love Among the Ruins, 
"eager eyes and yellow hair:" in A Toccata, 

Dear dead women, with such hair, too — what's become of all 

the gold 
Used to hang and brush their bosoms? 

And we must not forget his poem, Gold Hair, 



DRAMATIC LYRICS 143 

His descriptions of women's faces are never con- 
ventional, rosy cheeks and bright eyes, but always 
definite and specific. In Time's Revenges, the un- 
fortunate lover is maddened by the vision of the 
girl's face : 

So is my spirit, as flesh with sin, 
Filled full, eaten out and in 
With the face of her, the eyes of her. 
The lips, the little chin, the stir 
Of shadow round her mouth. 

Browning's rejected lovers are such splendid fel- 
lows that one wonders at their ill luck. Tennyson's 
typical lovers, as seen in Locksley Hall, Lady Clara 
Vere de Vere, and the first part of Maud, behave 
in a manner that quite justifies the woman. They 
whine, they rave, and they seem most of all to be 
astonished at the woman's lack of judgment in not 
recognising their merits. Instead of a noble sorrow, 
they exhibit peevishness; they seem to say, "You'll 
be sorry some day." Browning's rejected lovers 
never think of themselves and their own defeat; 
they think only of the woman, who is now more 
adorable than ever. It never occurs to them that 
the woman is lacking in intelligence because of her 
refusal; nor that the man she prefers is a low- 
browed scoundrel. They are chivalrous; they do 
their best to win. When they lose, they would 



144 BROWNING 

rather have been rejected by this woman than ac- 
cepted by any other; and they are always ready to 
congratulate the man more fortunate than they. 
They are in fact simply irresistible, and one can 
not help believing in their ultimate success. In The 
Lost Mistress, which Swinburne said was worth a 
thousand Lost Leaders, the lover has just been re- 
jected, and instead of thinking of his own misery, 
he endeavours to m^ke the awkward situation easier 
for the girl by small-talk about the sparrows and the 
leaf-buds. She has urged that their friendship con- 
tinue ; that this episode need not put an end to their 
meetings, and that he can come to see her as often 
as he likes, only there must be no nonsense ; he must 
promise to be sensible, and treat her only as a friend. 
Instead of rejecting this suggestion with scorn, he 
accepts, and agrees to do his best. 

Tomorrow we meet the same then, dearest? 

May I take your hand in mine? 
Mere friends are we . . . 
Yet I will but say what mere friends say, 

Or only a thought stronger ; 
I will hold your hand but as long as all may, 

Or so very little longer ! 

"I will do my best to please you, but remember I'm 
made of flesh and blood." 

In One Way of Love, the same kind of man ap- 



DRAMATIC LYRICS 145 

pears. Pauline likes flowers, music, and fine speeches. 
He is just a mere man, who has never noticed a 
flower in his life, who is totally indifferent to mu- 
sic, and never could talk with eloquence. But if 
, Pauline likes these things, he must endeavor to im- 
press her, if not with his skill, at all events with his 
devotion. He sends her a beautiful bouquet; she 
does not even notice it. For nlonths he tries to learn 
the instrument, until finally he can play "his tune.'* 
She does not even listen; he throws the lute away, 
for he cares nothing for music except for her sake. 
At last comes the supreme moment when he makes 
his declaration, on which the whole happiness of his 
life depends. 

This hour my utmost art I prove 

And speak my passion — heaven or hell? 

Many lovers, on being rejected, would simply re- 
peat the last word just quoted. This fine sportsman- 
like hero remarks, 

She will not give me heaven ? 'Tis well 1 
Lose who may — I still can say, 
Those who win heaven, blest are they I 

"I can not reproach myself, for I did my best, and 
lost : still less can I reproach her; all I can say is, the 
man who gets her is lucky." 

Finally, the same kind of character appears in one 



146 BROWNING 

of the greatest love-poems in all literature, The Last 
Ride Together. The situation just before the open- 
ing lines is an exact parallel to that of The Lost Mis- 
tress. Every day this young pair have been riding 
together. The man has fallen in love, and has mis- 
taken the girl's camaraderie for a deeper feeling. 
He has just discovered his error, and without mini- 
mising the force of the blow that has wrecked his 
life's happiness, this is what he says: 

Then, dearest, since 'tis so. 
Since now at length my fate I know, 
Since nothing all my love avails. 
Since all, my life seemed meant for, fails, 
Since this was written and needs must be — 
My whole heart rises up to 
(curse, oh, no!) 

rises up to bless 
Your name In pride and thankfulness I 
Take back the hope you gave, — I claim 
Only a memory of the same, 
— And this beside, if you will not blame, 
Your leave for one more last ride with me. 

What does the rejected lover mean by such brave 
words as "pride" and "thankfulness"? He means 
that it is a great honor to be rejected by such a 
woman, as Mr. Birrell says it is better to be knocked 
down by Doctor Johnson than to be picked up by 
Mr. Froude. He is thank f ul, too, to have known such 



DRAMATIC LYRICS 147^ 

SL wonderful woman; and to show that he can con- 
trol himself, and make the situation easier for her, 
he requests that to-day for the last time they ride just 
as usual — indeed they had met for that purpose, are 
properly accoutred, and were about to start, when he 
astonished her with his sudden and no longer con- 
trollable declaration. Right! We shall ride to- 
gether. I am not yet banished from the sight of her. 
Perhaps the world will end to-night. 

In the course of this poem. Browning develops 
one of his favorite ideas, that Life is always greater 
than Art. A famous poet may sit at his desk, and 
write of love in a way to thrill the hearts of his 
readers; but we should place him lower than rustic 
sweethearts meeting in the moonlight, because they 
are having in reality something which exists for the 
poet only in dreams. The same is true of sculpture 
and all pictorial art ; men will turn from the greatest 
masterpiece of the chisel or the brush to look at a 
living woman. 

And you, great sculptor, — so, you gave 
A score of years to Art, her slave. 
And that's your Venus, whence we turn 
To yonder girl that fords the burn I 

I was once seated in the square room in the gal- 
lery at Dresden that holds the most famous picture 



148 BROWNING 

in the world, Rafael's Sistine Madonna. A num- 
ber of tourists were in the place, and we were all 
gazing steadfastly at the immortal Virgin, when a 
pretty, fresh-colored young American girl entered 
the room. Every man's head twisted away from 
the masterpiece of art, and every man's eyes stared 
at the commonplace stranger, because she was alive ! 
I was much amused, and could not help thinking of 
Browning's lines. 

This doctrine, that Life is greater than Art, is 
repeated by Browning in Cleon, and it forms the 
whole content of Ibsen's last drama. When We Dead 
'Awaken. 

The lover's reasoning at the close of Browning's 
poem, that rejection may be better for him because 
now he has an unrealised ideal, and that the race 
itself is better than the victor's garland, reminds us 
of Lessing's noble saying, that if God gave him the 
choice between the knowledge of all truth and the 
search for it, he would humbly take the latter. 

One must lead some life beyond, 
Have a bliss to die with, cfm-descried. 



BROWNING'S REJECTED LOVERS 



THE LOST MISTRESS 
1845 
All's over, then ; does truth sound bitter 

As one at first beheves ? 
Hark, 'tis the sparrows' good-night twitter 
About your cottage eaves ! 

And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly, 

I noticed that, to-day ; 
One day more bursts them open fully 

— You know the red turns gray. 

To-morrow we meet the same then, dearest? 

May I take your hand in mine? 
Mere friends are we, — well, friends the merest 

Keep much that I resign : 

For each glance of the eye so bright and black 
Though I keep with heart's endeavour, — 

Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back, 
Though it stay in my soul forever ! — 

Yet I will but say what mere friends say, 

Or only a thought stronger ; 
I will hold your hand but as long as all may, 

Or so very little longer 1 

ONE WAY OF LOVE 

1855 

I 

All June I bound the rose in sheaves. 
Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves 
And strew them where Pauline may pass. 
She will not turn aside ? Alas ! 

149 



150 BROWNING 

Let them lie. Suppose they die ? 

The chance was they might take her eye. 

II. 

How many a month I strove to suit 
These stubborn fingers to the lute ! 
To-day I venture all I know. 
She will not hear my music? So! 
Break the string ; fold music's wing : 
Suppose Pauline had bade me sing I 

III 

My whole life long I learned to love. 
This hour my utmost art I prove 
And speak my passion — heaven or hell? 
She will not give me heaven ? 'Tis well I 
Lose who may — I still can say, 
Those who win heaven, blest are they I 

THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER 

1855 



I said — Then, dearest, since 'tis so, 
Since now at length my fate I know, 
Since nothing all my love avails. 
Since all, my hfe seemed meant for, fails. 

Since this was written and needs must be — 
My whole heart rises up to bless 
Your name in pride and thankfulness ! 
Take back the hope you gave, — I claim 
Only a memory of the same, 
— And this beside, if you will not blame. 

Your leave for one more last ride with me. 



DRAMATIC LYRICS 151 

II 

My mistress bent that brow of hers; 
Those deep dark eyes where pride demurs 
When pity would be softening through, 
Fixed me a breathing-while or two 

With life or death in the balance : right 1 
The blood replenished me again ; 
My last thought was at least not vain : 
I and my mistress, side by side 
Shall be together, breathe and ride, 
So, one day more am I deified. 

Who knows but the world may end to-night? 

Ill 

Hush ! if you saw some western cloud 

All billowy-bosomed, over-bowed 

By many benedictions — sun's 

And moon's and evening-star's at once — 

And so, you, looking and loving best, 
Conscious grew, your passion drew 
Cloud, sunset, moonrise, star-shine too, 
Down on you, near and yet more near, 
Till flesh must fade for heaven was here ! — 
Thus leant she and lingered — joy and fear I 

Thus lay she a moment on my breast. 

IV 

Then we began to ride. My soul 
Smoothed itself out, a long-cramped scroll 
Freshening and fluttering in the wind. 
Past hopes already lay behind. 

What need to strive with a life awry? 
Had I said that, had I done this. 
So might I gain, so might I miss. 



152 BROWNING 

Might she have loved me? just as well 
She might have hated, who can tell ! 
Where had I been now if the worst befell? 
And here we are riding, she and I. 

V 

Fail I alone, in words and deeds? 
Why, all men strive and who succeeds? 
We rode ; it seemed my spirit flew, 
Saw other regions, cities new. 

As the world rushed by on either side. 
I thought, — All labour, yet no less 
Bear up beneath their unsuccess. 
Look at the end of work, contrast 
The petty done, the undone vast. 
This present of theirs with the hopeful past I 

I hoped she would love me ; here we ride. 

VI 

What hand and brain went ever paired? 
What heart alike conceived and dared? 
What act proved all its thought had been? 
What will but felt the fleshly screen ? 

We ride and I see her bosom heave. 
There's many a crown for who can reach. 
Ten lines, a statesman's Hfe in each 1 
The flag stuck on a heap of bones, 
A soldier's doing ! what atones ? 
They scratch his name on the Abbey-stones. 

My riding is better, by their leave. 

VII 

What does it all mean, poet? Well, 
Your brains beat into rhythm, you tell 
What we felt only; you expressed 
You hold things beautiful the best, 



DRAMATIC LYRICS 153 

And pace them in rhyme so, side by side. 
'Tis something, nay 'tis much : but then. 
Have you yourself what's best for men? 
Are you — poor, sick, old ere your time — 
Nearer one whit your own sublime 
Than we who never have turned a rhyme? 

Sing, riding's a joyl For me, I ride. 
VIII 
And you, great sculptor — so, you gave 
A score of years to Art, her slave, 
And that's your Venus, whence we turn 
To yonder girl that fords the burn 1 

You acquiesce, and shall I repine? 
What, man of music, you grown grey 
With notes and nothing else to say. 
Is this your sole praise from a friend, 
"Greatly his opera's strains intend, 
"Put in music we know how fashions end I" 

I gave my youth ; but we ride, in fine. 

IX 

Who knows what's fit for us? Had fate 
Proposed bliss here should sublimate 
My being — had I signed the bond — 
Still one must lead some life beyond, 

Have a bliss to die with, dim-descried. 
This foot once planted on the goal. 
This glory-garland round my soul, 
Could I descry such ? Try and test ! 
I sink back shuddering from the quest. 
Earth being so good, would heaven seem best? 

Now, heaven and she are beyond this ride. 
X 
And yet — she has not spoke so long! 
What if heaven be that, fair and strong 



154 BROWNING 

At life's best, with our eyes upturned 
Whither life's flower is first discerned, 

We, fixed so, ever should so abide? 
What if we still ride on, we two 
With life for ever old yet new, 
Changed not in kind but in degree. 
The instant made eternity, — 
And heaven just prove that I and she 

Ride, ride together, for ever ride? 

Browning's lovers, as has been illustrated, are 
usually chivalrous, whether their passions have or 
have not the sanction of law. The poem In a Gon- 
dola, which has been more often translated into for- 
eign languages than perhaps any other of Brown- 
ing's works, gives us a picture of a night in Venice. 
The fluent rhythms of the verse indicate the lazy 
glide of the gondola through the dark waters of the 
canal. The lovers speak, sing, and muse; and their 
conversation is full of the little language character- 
istic of those who are in complete possession of 
each other, soul and body. They delight in pas- 
sionate reminiscences : they love to recall their first 
chance meeting : 

Ah, the autumn day 
I, passing, saw you overhead ! 

The wind blew out the curtains of her apartment, 
and her pet parrot escaped, giving the man his op- 



DRAMATIC LYRICS 155 

portunity. They rehearse over again the advancing 
stages of their drama. She asks him to kiss her Hke 
a moth, then like a bee — in the attempt to recapture 
the first shy sweetness of their dawning passion. 
They play little love-games. He pretends he is a 
Jew, carrying her away from her family to a 
tribal feast; then that they twain are spirits of stars, 
meeting in the thin air aloft. The intensity of their 
bliss is sharpened by the black cloud of danger in 
which they move : for if the Three, husband, father, 
and brother of the lady become aware of this secret 
liaison, there can be only one end to it — a tragedy 
of blood. The lighted taper held in the window by 
the trusted maid shows that they are "safe,'* and 
for the last time they play again their little comedy 
of formality. She pretends to be the formal grand e 
dame, the lady with the colder breast than snow : he 
is the bashful gallant, who hardly dares touch the 
tips of her fingers. In this laughing moment, the 
dagger of the husband is driven deep into his back. 
Like all of Browning's lovers, he gives, even on the 
edge of the eternal darkness, no thought to himself, 
but only to her. Gathering his dying energies, he 
speaks in a loud tone, so that the conspirators, invisi- 
ble in the Venetian night, may hear him : 



156 BROWNING 

Care not for the cowards ! Care 
Only to put aside thy beauteous hair 
My blood will hurt 1 

And in the last agony, he comforts her with the 
thought that all this, the joy of love and the separa- 
tion by murder, have been ordained. 

In Love Among the Ruins, with which Men and 
Women originally opened, and which some believe 
to be Browning's masterpiece. Love is given its 
place as the supreme fact in human history. This is 
a scene in the Roman Campagna at twilight, and the 
picture in the first stanza reminds us of Gray's Elegy 
in the perfection of its quiet silver tone. With a skill 
nothing short of genius, Browning has maintained 
in this poem a double parallel. Up to the fifth 
stanza, the contrast is between the present peace of 
the vast solitary plain, and its condition years ago 
when it was the centre of a city's beating heart: 
from the fifth stanza to the close, the contrast is be- 
tween this same vanished civilisation and the eternal 
quality of Love. I do not remember any other work 
in literature where a double parallel is given with 
such perfect continuity and beauty; the first half of 
each stanza is in exact antithesis to the last. The 
parenthesis — so they say — is a delicate touch of 
dramatic irony. No one would dream that this 



DRAMATIC LYRICS 15Z 

quiet plain was once the site of a great city, for no 
proofs remain: we have to take the word of the 
archaeologists for it. Some day a Japanese shep- 
herd may pasture his sheep on Manhattan Island. 

After a poetic discourse on the text Sic transit 
gloria mundi — the love motive is suddenly intro- 
duced in the fifth stanza; and now the contrast 
changes, and becomes a comparison between the 
ephemeral nature of civilisation and the permanent 
fact of Love. At the exact spot where the grand- 
stand formerly stood at the finish of the horse-race, 
where the King, surrounded by courtiers, watched 
the whirling chariots, now remains motionless, 
breathless, a yellow-haired girl. The proud King's 
eyes looked over the stadium and beheld the domes 
and pinnacles of his city, the last word of civilisa- 
tion ; the girl's eager eyes look over the silent plain 
searching for the coming of her lover. And Brown- 
ing would have us believe that this latter fact is far 
more important historically than the former. 

Suppose an American professor of archaeology 
is working on the grassy expanse, collecting mate- 
rial for his new book ; he looks up for a moment and 
sees a pair of rustic lovers kissing in the twilight; 
he smiles, and resumes what seems to him his im- 
portant labor. Little does he imagine that this 



158 BROWNING 

love-scene is more significant than all the broken bits 
of pottery he digs out of the ground ; yet such is the 
fact. For all he can do at his very best is to recon- 
struct a vanished past, while the lovers are acting 
a scene that belongs to eternity. Love is best. 

LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 

1855 

I 

Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles, 

Miles and miles 
On the solitary pastures where our sheep 

Half-asleep 
Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop 

As they crop — 
Was the site once of a city great and gay, 

(So they say) 
Of our country's very capital, its prince 

Ages since 
Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far 

Peace or war. 

n 

Now, — ^the country does not even boast a tree 

As you see, 
To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills 

From the hills 
Intersect and give a name to, (else they run 

Into one) 
Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires 

Up like fires 



DRAMATIC LYRICS 159 

O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall 

Bounding all, 
Made of marble, men might march on nor be pressed, 

Twelve abreast 



III 



And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass 

Never wasl 
Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'erspreads 

And embeds 
Every vestige of the city, guessed alone, 

Stock or stone — 
Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe 

Long ago ; 
Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame 

Struck them tame ; 
And that glory and that shame alike, the gold 

Bought and sold. 



IV 



Now, — the single little turret that remains 

On the plains, 
By the caper overrooted, by the gourd 

Overscored, 
While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks 

Through the chinks — 
Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time 

Sprang sublime. 
And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced 

As they raced, 
And the monarch and his minions and his dames 

Viewed the games. 



160 BROWNING 



And I know, while thus the quiet-coloured eve 

Smiles to leave 
To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece 

In such peace, 
And the slopes and rills in undistinguished grey 

Melt away — 
That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair 

Waits me there 
In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul 

For the goal, 
When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, 
dumb 

Till I come. 
VI 

But he looked upon the city, every side, 

Far and wide, 
All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades' 

Colonnades, 
All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts, — and then, 

All the men 1 
When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand. 

Either hand 
On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace 

Of my face. 
Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech 

Each on each. 
VII 
In one year they sent a million fighters forth 

South and North, 
And they built their gods a brazen pillar high 

As the sky, 
Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force — 

Gold, of course. 



DRAMATIC LYRICS 161 

Oh heart ! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns I 

Earth's returns 
For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin I 

Shut them in, 
With their triumphs and their glories and the rest ! 

Love is best. 

In the poem Respectability Browning gives us a 
more vulgar, but none the less vital aspect of love. 
This is no peaceful twilit harmony; this scene is 
set on a windy, rainy night in noisy Paris, on the 
left bank of the Seine, directly in front of the In- 
stitute of France. Two reckless lovers — either old 
comrades or picked-up acquaintances of this very 
night, it matters not which — come tripping along 
gaily, arm in arm. The man chaffs at worldly con- 
ventions, at the dullness of society, at the hypocrisy 
of so-called respectable people, and congratulates 
himself and his fair companion on the fun they are 
having. What fools they would have been had they 
waited through a long, formal courtship for the 
sanction of an expensive marriage! The world, he 
says, does not forbid kisses, only it says, you must 
see the magistrate first. My finger must not touch 
your soft lips until it is covered with the glove of 
marriage. Bah! what do we care for the world's 
good word ? At this moment they reach the lighted 
windows of the Institute, and like a pair of spar- 



162 BROWNING 

rows, they glance within at the highly proper but 
terribly tedious company. What do they see ? They 
see Guizot compelled by political exigency to shake 
hands hypocritically with his enemy Montalembert. 
But before them down a dim court shine three 
lamps, an all-night dance resort. Come on ! run for 
it! that's the place for us! no dull formalities, no 
hypocrisies there! Something doing! 

RESPECTABILITY 

1855 

I 

Dear, had the world in its caprice 
Deigned to proclaim "I know you both, 
*'Have recognized your plighted troth, 

"Am sponsor for you : live in peace !" — 

How many precious months and years 
Of youth had passed, that speed so fast. 
Before we found it out at last, 

The world, and what it fears? 

II 

How much of priceless life were spent 
With men that every virtue decks. 
And women models of their sex, 

Society's true ornament, — 

Ere we dared wander, nights like this. 
Thro' wind and rain, and watch the Seine, 
And feel the Boulevart break again 

To warmth and light and bliss? 



DRAMATIC LYRICS 163 

III 

I know ! the world proscribes not love ; 

Allows my finger to caress 

Your lips' contour and downiness, 
Provided it supply a glove. 
The world's good word ! — the Institute I 

Guizot receives Montalembert 1 

Eh ? Down the court three lampions flare : 
Put forward your best foot ! 

In the list of Dramatis Personcc, Browning placed 
Confessions shortly after A Death in the Desert, as 
if to show the enormous contrast in two death-bed 
scenes. After a presentation of the last noble, spir- 
itual, inspired moments of the apostle John, we have 
portrayed for us the dying delirium of an old 
sinner, whose thought travels back to the sweetest 
moments of his life, his clandestine meetings with 
the girl he loved. The solemn voice of the priest 
is like the troublesome buzzing of a fly. 

Do I view the world as a vale of tears ? 

Not much ! 

Like Matthew Arnold's Wish, the brother-doctor 
of the soul who is called in 

To canvass with official breath 

is simply a nuisance in these last minutes of life. 
The row of medicine bottles, all useless now for 
practical purposes, represents to his fevered eyes the 



164 BROWNING 

topography of the scene where the girl used to come 

running to meet him. "I know, sir, it's improper," 

• — I ought not to talk this way to a clergyman, my 

mind isn't right, I'm dying, and this is all I can 

think of. 

How sad and bad and mad it was — 
But then, how it was sweet I 

CONFESSIONS 
1864 

What is he buzzing in my ears ? 

"Now that I come to die, 
Do I view the world as a vale of tears?" 

Ah, reverend sir, not 1 1 

What I viewed there once, what I view again 

Where the physic bottles stand 
On the table's edge, — is a suburb lane, 

With a wall to my bedside hand. 

That lane sloped, much as the bottles do. 

From a house you could descry 
O'er the garden-wall ; is the curtain blue 

Or green to a healthy eye? 

To mine, it serves for the old June weather 

Blue above lane and wall ; 
And that farthest bottle labelled "Ether" 

Is the house o'ertopping all. 

At a terrace, somewhere near the stopper, 

There watched for me, one June, 
A girl : I know, sir, it's improper, 

My poor mind's out of tune. 



DRAMATIC LYRICS 165 

Only, there was a way . . . you crept 

Close by the side, to dodge 
Eyes in the house, two eyes except : 

They styled their house "The Lodge." 

What right had a lounger up their lane? 

But, by creeping very close. 
With the good wall's help, — their eyes might strain 

And stretch themselves to Oes, 

Yet never catch her and me together, 

As she left the attic, there, 
By the rim of the bottle labelled "Ether," 

And stole from stair to stair, 

And stood by the rose-wreathed gate. Alas, 

We loved, sir — used to meet : 
How sad and bad and mad it was — 

But then, how it was sweet ! 

We may close our considerations of the dramatic 
lyrics with three love-poems. Whenever in his later 
years Browning was asked to write a selection with 
his autograph, he used to say playfully that the only 
one of his poems that he could remember was My 
Star; hence more copies of this exist in manuscript 
than any other of his productions. It was of course 
a tribute to his wife; she shone upon his life like a 
star of various colors; but the moment the world 
attempted to pry into the secret of her genius, she 
shut off the light altogether. Let the world regard 
Saturn, the most wonderful star in the heavens. My 
star shines for me alone. 



166 BROWNING 

The first and best of the series of Bad Dreams 
gives us again in Browning's last volume his doctrine 
of love. Love is its own reward : it may be sad not 
to have love returned, but the one unspeakable 
tragedy is to lose the capacity for loving. In a ter- 
rible dream, the face of the woman changes from 
its famihar tenderness to a glance of stony indiffer- 
ence, and in response to his agonised enquiry, she de- 
clares that her love for him is absolutely dead. Then 
comes a twofold bliss : one was in the mere waking 
from such desolation, but the other consisted in the 
fact that even if the dream were true, his love for 
her knew no diminution. Thank God, I loved on 
the same ! 

The most audacious poem of Browning's old age 
is Summum Bonum. Since the dawn of human 
speculative thought, philosophers have asked this 
question, What is the highest good? It has been 
answered in various ways. Omar Khayyam said it 
was Wine : John Stuart Mill said it was the greatest 
happiness of the greatest number : the Westminster 
Catechism said it was to glorify God and enjoy Him 
forever. Browning says it is the kiss of one girl. 
This kiss is the concentrated essence of all the glory, 
beauty, and sweetness of life. In order to under- 
stand such a paradox, we must remember that in 



DRAMATIC LYRICS 167 

Browning's philosophy, Love is the engine of the 
whole universe. I have no doubt that Love meant to 
him more than it has ever meant to any other poet 
or thinker; just as I am sure that the word Beauty 
revealed to Keats a vision entirely beyond the range 
of even the greatest seers. Love is the supreme fact ; 
and every manifestation of it on earth, from the Di- 
vine Incarnation down to a chance meeting of lovers, 
is more important than any other event or idea. Now 
we have seen that it is Browning's way invariably 
to represent an abstract thought by a concrete illus- 
tration. Therefore in this great and daring lyric 
we find the imaginary lover calling the kiss of the 
woman he loves the highest good in life. 

MY STAR 
1855 
All that I know 

Of a certain star 
Is, it can throw 

(Like the angled spar) 
Now a dart of red, 

Now a dart of blue; 
Till my friends have said 
They would fain see, too, 
My star that dartles the red and the blue I 
Then it stops like a bird ; like a flower, hangs furled : 

They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it. 
What matter to me if their star is a world? 
Mine has opened its soul to me ; therefore I love it. 



168 BROWNING 

BAD DREAMS 
1889 

Last night I saw you in my sleep : 
And how your charm of face was changed ! 

I asked "Some love, some faith you keep ?" 
You answered "Faith gone, love estranged." 

Whereat I woke — a twofold bliss: 
Waking was one, but next there came 

This other : "Though I felt, for this. 
My heart break, I loved on the same." 

SUMMUM BONUM 

1889 

All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one 
bee: 
All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart of one 
gem: 
In the core of one pearl all the shade and the shine of the sea : 
Breath and bloom, shade and shine, — wonder, wealth, and — 
how far above them — 

Truth, that's brighter than gem, 
Trust, that's purer than pearl, — 
Brightest truth, purest trust in the universe — all were for me 
In the kiss of one girl. 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 

ALTHOUGH Browning was not a failure as a 
^dramatist — A Blot in the 'Scutcheon and In 
a Balcony are the greatest verse tragedies in the lan- 
guage since the Elizabethans — he found the true 
channel for his genius in the Dramatic Monologue. 
He takes a certain critical moment in one person's 
life, and by permitting the individual to speak, his 
character, the whole course of his existence, and 
sometimes the spirit of an entire period in the 
world's history are revealed in a brilliant search- 
light. With very few exceptions, one of which will 
be given in our selections, a dramatic monologue is 
not a meditation nor a soliloquy; it is a series of re- 
marks, usually confessional, addressed either orally 
or in an epistolary form to another person or to a 
group of listeners. These other figures, though 
they do not speak, are necessary to the understand- 
ing of the monologue; we often see them plainly, 

169 



170 BROWNING 

and see their faces change in expression as the mon- 
ologue advances. At the dinner table of Bishop 
Blougram, the little man Gigadibs is conspicuously 
there ; and Lucrezia is so vividly before us in Andrea 
del Sarto, that a clever actress has actually assumed 
this silent role on the stage, and exhibited simply by 
her countenance the effect of Andrea's monologue. 
This species of verse is perhaps the highest form of 
poetic art, as it is the most difficult ; for with no stage 
setting, no descriptions, no breaks in the conversa- 
tion, the depths of the human heart are exposed. 

One of the greatest dramatic monologues in all 
literature is My Last Duchess, and it is astounding 
that so profound a life-drama should have been con- 
ceived and faultlessly expressed by so young a poet. 
The whole poem contains only fifty-six lines, but it 
could easily be expanded into a three-volume novel. 
Indeed it exhibits Browning's genius for condensa- 
tion as impressively as The Ring and the Book 
proves his genius for expansion. The metre is in- 
teresting. It is the heroic couplet, the same form 
exactly in which Pope wrote his major productions. 
Yet the rime, which is as evident as the recurring 
strokes of a tack-hammer in Pope, is scarcely heard 
at all in My Last Duchess. Its effect is so muffled, 
§0 concealed, that I venture to say that many who 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 171 

are quite familiar with the poem, could not declare 
offhand whether it were written in rime or in blank 
verse. This technical trick is accomplished by what 
the French call overflow, the running on of the 
sense from one line to another, a device so dear to 
the heart of Milton. Some one has well said that 
Dryden's couplets are links in a chain, whilst Pope's 
are pearls on a string. Pope enclosed nearly every 
couplet, so that they are quite separate, which is one 
reason why he has given us such a vast number of 
aphorisms. To see how totally different in effect the 
heroic couplet is when it is closed and when it is 
open, one may compare almost any selection from 
Pope with the opening lines of Keats's Endymion, 
and then silently marvel that both poems are written 
in exactly the same measure. 

POPE 
Peace to all such ! but were there one whose fires 
True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires; 
Blest with each talent and each art to please, 
And born to write, converse, and live with ease : 
Should such a man, too fond to rule alone. 
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne, 
View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, 
And hate for arts that caused himself to rise. 

KEATS 
A thing of beauty is a joy forever: 
Its loveliness increases ; it will never 



172 BROWNING 

Pass into nothingness ; but still will keep 

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep 

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. 

Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing 

A flowery band to bind us to the earth. 

One has only to glance at the printed page of My 
Last Duchess J and see how few of the lines end in 
punctuation points, to discover the method employed 
when a poet wishes to write a very strict measure in 
a very free manner. 

I have sometimes thought that George Eliot took 
a hint from this poem in the composition of Daniel 
Deronda, for the relations between Grandcourt and 
Gwendolen are exactly the same as existed between 
the Duke and his late wife; a more recent, though 
not so great an example, may be found in Mrs. 
Burnett's novel. The Shuttle. The poem is a study 
in cold, systematic torture of a warm human soul 
by an icy-hearted tyrant. 

Browning adopts one of his favorite methods of 
character-revelation here. All that we know of the 
Duchess is the testimony given by her worst enemy, 
her husband ; and yet, in attempting to describe her, 
he has succeeded in painting only his own narrow 
and hideous heart. Slander is often greater in the 
recoil than in the discharge; when a man attempts 
to give an unfavorable portrait of another, he 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 173 

usually gives us an exact likeness of himself. Pope 
meant his picture of Addison to be correct ; but al- 
though he made the picture with immortal art, it is 
no more like Addison than it resembles St. Francis ; 
it is, however, an absolutely faithful image of Pope 
himself. This is one reason why slander is such an 
exceedingly dangerous weapon to handle. 

The Duke tells the envoy that his late Duchess 
was flirtatious, plebeian in her enthusiasm, not suffi- 
ciently careful to please her husband; but the evi- 
dent truth is that he had a Satanic pride, that he was 
yellow with jealousy, that he was methodically cruel. 
His jealousy is shown by the fact that he would al- 
low only a monk to paint her: "I said Tra Pan- 
dolf by design," and he required the monk to do 
the whole task in one day. His pride is shown in 
the fact that although her expansive nature dis- 
pleased him, he would never stoop to remonstrate 
with her. His cruelty is shown in the fact that he 
coldly repressed her little enthusiasms, and finally 
murdered her. I suppose she was really a frank, 
charming girl, who came from a happy home, a 
bright and eager bride; she was one of those lovely 
women whose kindness and responsiveness are as 
natural as the sunlight. She loved to watch the 
sunset from the terrace ; she loved to pet the white 



174 BROWNING 

mule ; she was delighted when some one brought her 
a gift of cherries. Then she was puzzled, bewil- 
dered, when she found that all her expressions of de- 
light in life received a cold, disapproving glance of 
scorn from her husband; her lively talk at dinner, 
her return from a ride, flushed and eager, met in- 
variably this icy stare of hatred. She smiled too 
much to please him. 

Then all smiles stopped together. 

What difference does it make whether he deliber- 
ately poisoned her, or whether he simply broke 
her heart by the daily chill of silent contempt? For 
her, at all events, death must have been a release. 
She would have been happier with a drunken hus- 
band, with a brute who kicked her, rather than with 
this supercilious cold-hearted patrician. Toward 
the end of the poem, in his remarks about the dowry, 
we see that the Duke is as avaricious as he is cruel ; 
though he says with a disagreeable smile, that the 
woman herself is his real object. The touch to 
make this terrible man complete comes at the very 
end. The Duke and the envoy prepare to descend 
the staircase; the latter bows, to give precedence to 
the man with the nine hundred years' old name : but 
the Duke, with a purr like a tiger, places his arm 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 175 

around the shoulder of the visitor, and they take 
the first step. Just then the master of the palace 
calls attention casually to a group of statuary. It 
is Neptune taming a sea-horse. That's the way I 
break them in ! 

Throughout the whole monologue, the Duke 
speaks in a quiet, steady, ironical tone ; the line 

The depth and passion of its earnest glance 

is pronounced in intense irony, in ridicule of the con- 
ventional remark made by previous visitors. Only 
once or twice do we see the teeth of this monster 
flash, revealing his horrible heart. When he speaks 
of the "officious fool" who brought the cherries, and 
when he says *'all smiles stopped together"; then 
the envoy looks at him with a fearful question in 
his eyes, but the Duke's face immediately resumes 
its mask of stone. 

MY LAST DUCHESS 

FERRARA 
1842 

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, 
Looking as if she were alive. I call 
That piece a wonder, now : Fra Pandolf 's hands 
Worked busily a day, and there she stands. 
Wiirt please you sit and look at her? I said 
'Tra Pandolf" by design, for never read 



176 BROWNING 

Strangers like you that pictured countenance, 

The depth and passion of its earnest glance, 

But to myself they turned (since none puts by 

The curtain I have drawn for you, but I) 

And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, 

How such a glance came there ; so, not the first 

Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not 

Her husband's presence only, called that spot 

Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps 

Fra Pandolf chanced to say "Her mantle laps 

"Over my lady's wrist too much," or "Paint 

"Alust never hope to reproduce the faint 

"Half-flush that dies along her throat :" such stuflf 

Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough 

For calling up that spot of joy. She had 

A heart — how shall I say ? — too soon made glad, 

Too easily impressed ; she liked whate'er 

She looked on, and her looks went everywhere. 

Sir, 'twas all one ! My favour at her breast, 

The dropping of the daylight in the West, 

The bough of cherries some officious fool 

Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule 

She rode with round the terrace — all and each 

Would draw from her alike the approving speech. 

Or blush, at least. She thanked men, — good ! but thanked 

Somehow — I know not how — as if she ranked 

My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name 

With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame 

This sort of trifling? Even had you skill 

In speech — (which I have not) — to make your will 

Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this 

"Or that in you disgusts me ; here you miss, 

"Or there exceed the mark" — and if she let 

Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set 

Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse, 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 177 

•— E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose 

Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt, 

Whene'er I passed her ; but who passed without 

Much the same smile ? This grew ; I gave commands ; 

Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands 

As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet 

The company below, then. I repeat, 

The Count your master's known munificence 

Is ample warrant that no just pretence 

Of mine for dowry will be disallowed; 

Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed 

At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go 

Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though. 

Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity, 

Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me ! 

To turn from My Last Duchess to Count Gis- 
mond is like coming out of a damp cellar into God's 
own sunshine. Originally Browning called these 
two poems Italy and France; but he later fell madly 
in love with Italy, and I suppose could not bear to 
have so cold-blooded a tragedy represent the country 
graven on his heart. The charm and brightness of 
Count Gismond are properly connected with one of 
the loveliest towns in the world, the old city of Aix 
in Provence, a jewel on the hills rising from the 
Mediterranean Sea. 

Gismond is Browning's hero. He is the resolute 
man who does not hesitate, who makes himself in- 
stantly master of the situation, who appears like 



178 BROWNING 

Lohengrin in the moment of Elsa^s sharp distress, a 
messenger from Heaven. 

Or, if virtue feeble were, 
Heaven itself would stoop to her. 

When the lady was publicly accused by the 
scoundrel Gauthier, I suppose many men said, "What 
a pity that so fair a woman should be so foul!" 
Others said gravely, "This matter ought to be judi- 
cially examined." Gismond was the only man who 
realised that a defenseless orphan was insulted, and 
the words were hardly out of Gauthier' s mouth when 
he received "the list's reply to the filth." The lovers 
walked away from the "shouting multitude," the 
fickle, cowardly, contemptible public, who did not 
dare to defend the lady in her need, but had lungs 
enough for the victor, whoever he might be. It is 
pleasant to notice the prayer of the lady for the 
dead Gauthier. "I hope his soul is in heaven." This 
is no mere Christian forgiveness. Gauthier had 
proved to be the means of her life-happiness. Had 
it not been for his shameful accusation, she would 
never have met Gismond. Out of her agony came 
her richest blessing. 

All this happened years ago, but when her hus- 
band appears with the children she tells him a white 
lie. "I have just been boasting to Adela about the 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 179 

skill of my hunting hawk." She has been doing 
nothing of the kind ; but she can not talk about the 
great event of her life before the children. 

COUNT GISMOND 

AIX IN PROVENCE 

1842 



Christ God who savest man, save most 
Of men Count Gismond who saved me! 

Count Gauthier, when he chose his post, 
Chose time and place and company 

To suit it ; when he struck at length 

My honour, 'twas with all his strength. 

II 

And doubtlessly ere he could draw 
All points to one, he must have schemed I 

That miserable morning saw 
Few half so happy as I seemed, 

While being dressed in queen's array 

To give our tourney prize away. 



Ill 



I thought they loved me, did me grace 
To please themselves ; 'twas all their deed; 

God makes, or fair or foul, our face ; 
If showing mine so caused to bleed 

My cousins' hearts, they should have dropped 

A word, and straight the play had stopped. 



180 BROWNING 

IV 

They, too, so beauteous I Each a queen 
By virtue of her brow and breast ; 

Not needing to be crowned, I mean, 
As I do. E'en when I was dressed, 

Had either of them spoke, instead 

Of glancing sideways with still head I 

V 

But no : they let me laugh, and sing 

My birthday song quite through, adjust 
The last rose in my garland, fling 

A last look on the mirror, trust 
My arms to each an arm of theirs, 
And so descend the castle-stairs — 

VI 
And come out on the morning-troop 

Of merry friends who kissed my cheek. 
And called me queen, and made me stoop 

Under the canopy — (a streak 
That pierced it, of the outside sun. 
Powdered with gold its gloom's soft dun) — 

VII 
And they could let me take my state 

And foolish throne amid applause 
Of all come there to celebrate 

My queen's-day — Oh I think the cause 
Of much was, they forgot no crowd 
Makes up for parents in their shroud ! 

VIII 
However that be, all eyes were bent 

Upon me, when my cousins cast 
Theirs down ; 'twas time I should present 

The victor's crown, but . . . there, 'twill last 



DRAIvlATIC MONOLOGUES 181 

No long time . . . the old mist again 
Blinds me as then it did. How vain I 

IX 
See ! Gismond's at the gate, in talk 

With his two boys : I can proceed. 
Well, at that moment, who should stalk 

Forth boldly — to my face, indeed — 
But Gauthier, and he thundered "Stayl" 
And all stayed. "Bring no crowns, I sayl 

X 
"Bring torches 1 Wind the penance-sheet 

"About her I Let her shun the chaste, 
"Or lay herself before their feet 1 

"Shall she whose body I embraced 
"A night long, queen it in the day? 
"For honour's sake no crowns, I say 1" 

XI 
I ? What I answered ? As I live, 

I never fancied such a thing 
As answer possible to give. 

What says the body when they spring 
Some monstrous torture-engine's whole 
Strength on it? No more says the souL 

XII 
Till out strode Gismond ; then I knew 

That I was saved. I never met 
His face before, but, at first view, 

I felt quite sure that God had set 
Himself to Satan ; who would spend 
A minute's mistrust on the end ? 

XIII 
He strode to Gauthier, in his throat 
Gave him the lie, then struck his mouth 



182 BROWNING 

With one back-handed blow that wrote 

In blood men's verdict there. North, South, 
East, West, I looked. The lie was dead, 
And damned, and truth stood up instead. 

XIV 

This glads me most, that I enjoyed 
The heart of the joy, with my content 

In watching Gismond unalloyed 
By any doubt of the event: 

God took that on him — I was bid 

Watch Gismond for my part : I did. 

XV 

Did I not watch him while he let 
His armourer just brace his greaves. 

Rivet his hauberk, on the fret 
The while 1 His foot . . . my memory leaves 

No least stamp out, nor how anon 

He pulled his ringing gauntlets on. 

XVI 

And e*en before the trumpet's sound 
Was finished, prone lay the false knight, 

Prone as his lie, upon the ground : 
Gismond flew at him, used no sleight 

O' the sword, but open-breasted drove, 

Cleaving till out the truth he clove. 

XVII 

Which done, he dragged him to my feet 
And said "Here die, but end thy breath 

"In full confession, lest thou fleet 
"From my first, to God's second death I 

"Say, hast thou lied ?" And, "I have lied 

"To God and her," he said, and died. 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 183 

XVIII 

Then GIsmond, kneeling to me, asked 
— What safe my heart holds, though no word 

Could I repeat now, if I tasked 
My powers for ever, to a third 

Dear even as you are. Pass the rest 

Until I sank upon his breast. 

XIX 

Over my head his arm he flung 

Against the world ; and scarce I felt 
His sword (that dripped by me and swung) 

A little shifted in its belt: 
For he began to say the while 
How South our home lay many a mile. 

XX 

So 'mid the shouting multitude 

We two walked forth to never more 
Return. My cousins have pursued 

Their life, untroubled as before 
I vexed them. Gauthier's dwelling-place 
God lighten I May his soul find grace 1 

XXI 

Our elder boy has got the clear 
Great brow ; tho* when his brother's black 

Full eye shows scorn, it . . . Gismond here? 
And have you brought my tercel back ? 

I just was telling Adela 

How many birds it struck since May. 

The Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister differs from 
most of the Dramatic Monologues in not being ad- 



184 BROWNING 

dressed to a listener; but the difference is more ap- 
parent than real; for the other person is in plain 
view all the time, and the Soliloquy would have no 
point were it not for the peaceful activities of Friar 
Lawrence. This poem, while it deals ostensibly with 
the lives of only two monks, gives us a glimpse into 
the whole monastic system. When a number of men 
retired into a monastery and shut out the world 
forever, certain sins and ambitions were annihilated, 
while others were enormously magnified. All out- 
side interests vanished; but sin remained, for it 
circulates in the human heart as naturally as blood 
in the body. The cloister was simply a little world, 
with the nobleness and meanness of human nature 
exceedingly conspicuous. When the men were once 
enclosed in the cloister walls, they knew that they 
must live in that circumscribed spot till the separa- 
tion of death. Naturally therefore political ambi- 
tions, affections, envies, jealousies, would be writ 
large ; human nature would display itself in a man- 
ner most interesting to a student, if only he could 
live there in a detached way. This is just what 
Browning tries to do ; he tries to live imaginatively 
with the monks, and to practise his profession as the 
Chronicler of Life. 

The only way to realise what the monastic life 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 183 

really meant would be to imagine a small modern 
college situated in the country, and the passage of 
a decree that not a single student should leave the 
college grounds until his body was committed to the 
tomb. The outside interests of the world would 
quickly grow dim and eventually vanish ; and every- 
thing would be concentrated within the community. 
I suppose that the passions of friendship, hatred, 
and jealousy would be prodigiously magnified. There 
must have been friendships among the monks of the 
middle ages compared to which our boasted college 
friendships are thin and pale; and there must have 
been frightful hatreds and jealousies. In all com- 
munities there are certain persons that get on the 
nerves of certain others; the only way to avoid this 
acute suffering is to avoid meeting the person who 
causes it. But imagine a cloister where dwells a 
man you simply can not endure: every word he 
says, every motion he makes, every single manner- 
ism of walk and speech is intolerable. Now you 
must live with this man until one of you dies : you 
must sit opposite to him at meals, you can not escape 
constant contact. Your only resource is profane 
soliloquies: but if you have a sufficiently ugly dis- 
position, you can revenge yourself upon him in a 
thousand secret ways. 



186 BROWNING 

Friar Lawrence unconsciously and innocently 
fans the flames of hatred in our speaker's heart, 
simply because he does not dream of the effect he 
produces. Every time he talks at table about the 
weather, the cork-crop, Latin names, and other 
trivialities, the man sitting opposite to him would 
like to dash his plate in his face : every time Friar 
Lawrence potters around among his roses, the other 
looking down from his window, with a face distorted 
with hate, would like to kill him with a glance. Poor 
Lawrence drives our soliloquist mad with his de- 
liberate table manners, with his deliberate method 
of speech, with his care about his own goblet and 
spoon. And all the time Lawrence believes that his 
enemy loves him ! 

From another point of view, this poem resembles 
My Last Duchess in that it is a revelation of the 
speaker's heart. We know nothing about Friar Law- 
rence except what his deadly enemy tells us; but it 
is quite clear that Lawrence is a dear old man, inno- 
cent as a child ; while the speaker, simply in giving 
his testimony against him, reveals a heart jealous, 
malicious, lustful; he is like a thoroughly bad boy 
at school, with a pornographic book carefully con- 
cealed. Just at the moment when his rage and 
hatred reach a climax, the vesper bell sounds; and 



DRAMATIC AIONOLOGUES 187 

the speaker, who is an intensely strict formahst and 
rituaHst, presents to us an amusing spectacle; for 
out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. 

SOLILOQUY OF THE SPANISH CLOISTER 

1842 

I 

Gr-r-r — there go, my heart's abhorrence 1 

Water 3'our damned flower-pots, do I 
If hate killed men. Brother Lawrence, 

God's blood, would not mine kill you 1 
What? 3^our m3Ttle-bush wants trimming? 

Oh, that rose has prior claims — 
Needs its leaden vase filled brimming? 

Hell dry you up with its flames ! 
II 
At the meal we sit together : 

Salve tibi! I must hear 
Wise talk of the kind of weather, 

Sort of season, time of year : 
Not a plenteous cork-crop: scarcely 

Dare we hope oak-galls, I doubt: 
What's the Latin name for "parsley"? 

What's the Greek name for Swine's Snout? 
Ill 
Whew ! We'll have our platter burnished, 

Laid with care on our own shelf ! 
With a fire-new spoon we're furnished, 

And a goblet for ourself, 
Rinsed like something sacrificial 

Ere 'tis fit to touch our chaps — 
Marked with L. for our initial ! 

(He-he! There his Hly snaps!) 



188 BROWNING 

IV 

Saint, forsooth ! While brown Dolores 

Squats outside the Convent bank 
With Sanchicha, telling stories, 

Steeping tresses in the tank, 
Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horsehairs, 

— Can't I see his dead eye glow, 
Bright as 'twere a Barbary corsair's ? 

(That is, if he'd let it showl) 

V 

When he finishes refection, 

Knife and fork he never lays 
Cross-wise, to my recollection, 

As do I, in Jesu's praise. 
I the Trinity illustrate. 

Drinking watered orange-pulp — 
In three sips the Arian frustrate ; 

While he drains his at one gulp. 

VI 

Oh, those melons? If he's able 

We're to have a feast ! so nice I 
One goes to the Abbot's table. 

All of us get each a slice. 
How go on your flowers ? None double 

Not one fruit-sort can you spy? 
Strange! — And I, too, at such trouble. 

Keep them close-nipped on the sly I 

VII 

There's a great text in Galatians, 
Once you trip on it, entails 

Twenty-nine distinct damnations, 
One sure, if another fails : 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 189 

If I trip him just a-dying, 

Sure of heaven as sure can be, 
Spin him round and send him flying 

Off to hell, a Manichee? 

VIII 

Or, my scrofulous French novel 

On grey paper with blunt type I 
' Simply glance at it, you grovel 

Hand and foot in Belial's gripe : 
If I double down its pages 

At the woeful sixteenth print, 
When he gathers his greengages, 

Ope a sieve and slip it in't? 

IX 

Or, there's Satan ! — one might venture 

Pledge one's soul to him, yet leave 
Such a flaw in the indenture 

As he'd miss till, past retrieve, 
Blasted lay that rose-acacia 

We're so proud of ! Hy, Zy, Hine , , . 
*St, there's Vespers ! Plena gratid 

Ave, Virgo! Gr-r-r — you swine I 

Everybody loves Browning's Ghent to Aix poem. 
Even those who can not abide the poet make an ex- 
ception here ; and your thorough-going Browningite 
never outgrows this piece. It is the greatest horse- 
back poem in the hterature of the world : compared 
to this, Paul Revere' s Ride is the amble of a splay- 
footed nag. It sounds as though it had been writ- 
ten in the saddle: but it was really composed dur- 



190 BROWNING 

ing a hot day on the deck of a vessel in the Med- 
iterranean, and written off on the flyleaf of a printed 
book that the poet held in his hand. Poets are al- 
ways most present with the distant, as Mrs. Brown- 
ing said ; and Browning, while at sea, thought with 
irresistible longing of his good horse eating his 
head off in the stable at home. Everything about 
this poem is imaginary; there never had been any 
such good news brought, and it is probable that no 
horse could cover the distance in that time. 

But the magnificent gallop of the verse : the change 
from moonset to sunrise: the scenery rushing 
by: the splendid spirit of horse and man: and the 
almost insane joy of the rider as he enters Aix — 
these are more true than history itself. Browning 
is one of our greatest poets of motion — whether it 
be the glide of a gondola, the swift running of the 
Marathon professional Pheidippides, the steady ad- 
vance of the galleys over the sea in Paracelsus, the 
sharp staccato strokes of the horse's hoofs through 
the Metidja, or the swinging stride of the students 
as they carry the dead grammarian up the moun- 
tain. Not only do the words themselves express the 
sound of movement; but the thought, in all these 
great poems of motion, travels steadily and naturally 
with the advance. It is interesting to compare a 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 191 

madly-rushing poem like Ghent to Aix with the ab- 
solute calm of Andrea del Sarto. It gives one an 
appreciation of Browning's purely technical skill. 

No one has ever, so far as I know, criticised Ghent 
to Aix adversely except Owen Wister's Virginian; 
and his strictures are hypercritical. As Roland 
threw his head back fiercely to scatter the spume- 
flakes, it would be easy enough for the rider to see 
the eye-sockets and the blood full nostrils. Every 
one has noticed how a horse will do the ear-shift, 
putting one ear forward and one back at the same 
moment. Browning has an imaginative reason for 
it. One ear is pushed forward to listen for danger 
ahead; the other bent back, to catch his master's 
voice. Was there ever a greater study in passion- 
ate cooperation between man and beast than this 
splendid poem ? 

"HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM 
GHENT TO AIX" 

1845 

I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he ; 

I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three ; 

**Good speed !" cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew ; 

"Speed !" echoed the wall to us galloping through ; 

Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest, 

And Into the midnight we galloped abreast. 



192 BROWNING 

Not a word to each other ; we kept the great pace 
Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place ; 
I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight, 
Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right, 
Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit. 
Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit 

'Twas moonset at starting ; but while we drew near 

Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear ; 

At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see ; 

At Diiffeld, 'twas morning as plain as could be ; 

And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half-chime, 

So Joris broke silence with, "Yet there is time !" 

At Aershot, up leaped of a sudden the sun. 
And against him the cattle stood black every one, 
To stare through the mist at us galloping past, 
And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last. 
With resolute shoulders, each butting away 
The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray : 

And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back 
For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track ; 
And one eye's black intelligence, — ever that glance 
O'er its white edge at me, his own master, askance I 
And the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye and anon 
His fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on. 

By Hasselt, Dirck groaned ; and cried Joris, "Stay spur ! 
Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault's not in her, 
We'll remember at Aix" — for one heard the quick wheeze 
Of her chest, saw the stretched neck and staggering knees. 
And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank. 
As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank. 

So, we were left galloping, Joris and I, 

Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky; 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 193 

The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh, 

*Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff ; 

Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white, 

And "Gallop," gasped Joris, "for Aix is in sight!" 

"How they'll greet us !" — and all in a moment his roan 
Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone ; 
And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight 
Of the news which alone could save Aix from her fate, 
With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim. 
And with circles of red for his eye-sockets' rim. 

Then I cast loose my buffcoat, each holster let fall. 
Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all, 
Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear, 
Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer ; 
Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or 

good, 
Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood. 

And all I remember is — friends flocking round 
As I sat with his head 'twixt my knees on the ground ; 
And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine. 
As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine, 
Which (the burgesses voted by common consent) 
Was no more than his due who brought good news from 
Ghent. 

The monologue of the dying Bishop is as great 
a masterpiece as My Last Duchess; it has not a su- 
perfluous word, and in only a few lines gives us the 
spirit of the Italian Renaissance. Ruskin said that 
Browning is "unerring in every sentence he writes 
about the Middle Ages, always vital, right, and pre- 



194 BROWNING 

found." He added, "I know no other piece of mod- 
ern English, prose or poetry, in which there is so 
much told, as in these lines, of the Renaissance 
spirit." Yet Browning had never seen Rome until 
a few months before this poem was published. It 
is an example, not of careful study, but of the In- 
explicable divination of genius. Browning permits 
a delirious old Bishop to talk a few lines, and a 
whole period of history is wTltten. 

The church of Saint Prassede is in a dirty little 
alley in Rome, hard by the great church of Saint 
Maria Maggiore. You push through the group of 
filthy, importunate beggars, open a leather door, and 
you drop from the twentieth to the sixteenth century. 
It is one of the most ornate churches in Rome ; the 
mosaic angels in the choir are precisely as^-the poet 
describes them. The tomb of the imaginary Gan- 
dolf may be identified with a Bishop's tomb on the 
south side of the church, and the Latin Inscription 
under It, while it does not contain the form "eluces- 
cebat," is not pure Tully, but rather belongs to the 
Latin of Ulpian's time. The recumbent figure is 
in exact accord with the description by Browning. 

Skeptics are essential to the welfare of the 
Church; it is only in periods of sharp, skilful hos- 
tility that the Church becomes pure. In the Middle 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 195 

Ages, when it ran riot with power, there were 
plenty of churchmen as corrupt as our dying man. 
His love for a Greek manuscript is as sensual as his 
love for his mistress; and having lived a life of 
physical delight, it is natural that his last thoughts 
should concern themselves with the abode of his 
body rather than with the destination of his soul. 
Of course his mind is wandering, or he would not 
speak with quite such shameless cynicism. Brown- 
ing has made him talk of Saint Praxed at his ser- 
mon on the mount, in order to prove the delirium. 
S. Praxed was a female saint. 

The constant confusion of Greek mythology with 
the ritual of the Christian church is a characteristic 
feature both of this poem and of the period of his- 
tory it represents. 

Kipling is particularly fond of this work, and it 
will be remembered what use he makes of it in 
Stalky and Co. 

THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB AT SAINT 
PRAXED'S CHURCH 

Rome, 15 — 
1845 
Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity I 
Draw round my bed : is Anselm keeping back? 
Nephews — sons mine ... ah God, I know not 1 Well- 
She, men would have to be your mother once, 



196 BROWNING 

Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was I 

What's done is done, and she is dead beside, 

Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since, 

And as she died so must we die ourselves, 

And thence ye may perceive the world's a dream. 

Life, how and what is it? As here I lie 

In this state-chamber, dying by degrees, 

Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask 

"Do I live, am I dead ?" Peace, peace seems all. 

Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace ; 

And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought 

With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know : 

— Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care ; 

Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South 

He graced his carrion with, God curse the same 1 

Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence 

One sees the pulpit o* the epistle-side, 

And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats, 

And up into the aery dome where live 

The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk : 

And I shall fill my slab of basalt there. 

And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest. 

With those nine columns round me, two and two, 

The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands : 

Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe 

As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse. 

— Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone, 

Put me where I may look at him ! True peach, 

Rosy and flawless : how I earned the prize I 

Draw close : that conflagration of my church 

i— What then ? So much was saved if aught were 

missed ! 
My sons, ye would not be my death ? Go dig 
The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood, 
Drop water gently till the surface sink, 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 197 

And if ye find ... Ah God, I know not, I ! . . . 

Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft, 

And corded up in a tight olive-frail, 

Some lump, ah God, of lapis lazuli. 

Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape. 

Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast . . . 

Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all, 

That brave Frascati villa with its bath. 

So, let the blue lump poise between my knees, 

Like God the Father's globe on both his hands 

Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay, 

For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst ! 

Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years : 

Man goeth to the grave, and where is he ? 

Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black — 

'Twas ever antique-black I meant ! How else 

Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath ? 

The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me, 

Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance 

Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so. 

The Saviour at his sermon on the mount, 

Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan 

Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off, 

And Moses with the tables . . . but I know 

Ye mark me not ! What do they whisper thee. 

Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope 

To revel down my villas while I gasp 

Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine 

Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at ! 

Nay, boys, ye love me — all of jasper, then! 

'Tis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve. 

My bath must needs be left behind, alas ! 

One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut, 

There's plenty jasper somewhere in the world — 

And have I not Saint Praxed's ear to pray 



198 BROWNING 

Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts, 

And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs? 

— That's if ye carve my epitaph aright, 

Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word, 

No gaudy ware like Gandolf's second line — 

Tully, my masters ? Ulpian serves his need I 

And then how I shall lie through centuries. 

And hear the blessed mutter of the mass. 

And see God made and eaten all day long, 

And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste 

Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke I 

For as I lie here, hours of the dead night. 

Dying in state and by such slow degrees, 

I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook, 

And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point, 

And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop 

Into great laps and folds of sculptor's-work : 

And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts 

Grow, with a certain humming in my ears, 

About the life before I lived this life, 

And this life too, popes, cardinals and priests, 

Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount. 

Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes. 

And new-found agate urns as fresh as day. 

And marble's language, Latin pure, discreet, 

• — Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend? 

No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best ! 

Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage. 

All lapis, all, sons I Else I give the Pope 

My villas ! Will ye ever eat my heart ? 

Ever your eyes were as a lizard's quick. 

They glitter like your mother's for my soul, 

Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze, 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 199 

Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase 

With grapes, and add a vizor and a Term, 

And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx 

That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down, 

To comfort me on my entablature 

Whereon I am to lie till I must ask 

"Do I live, am I dead ?" There, leave me, there 1 

For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude 

To death — ^ye wish it — God, ye wish it ! Stone — 

Gritstone, a-crumble ! Clammy squares which sweat 

As if the corpse they keep were oozing through — 

And no more lapis to delight the world ! 

Well go ! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there, 

But in a row : and, going, turn your backs 

— Ay, like departing altar-ministrants, 

And leave me in my church, the church for peace, 

That I may watch at leisure if he leers — 

Old Gandolf, at me, from his onion-stone, 

As still he envied me, so fair she was ! 

Browning gives us a terrible study of jealousy in 
The Laboratory. The chemist says nothing, but the 
contrast between the placid face of the old scientist, 
intent only upon his work, and the wildly passionate 
countenance of the little woman with him, is suffi- 
ciently impressive. Those were the days when mur- 
der was a fine art. She plans the public death of 
the woman she hates so that the lover will never 
be able to forget the dying face. Radiant in queenly 
beauty, with the smile of satisfaction that accom- 



200 BROWNING 

panics the inner assurance of beauty and power — 
in a moment she will be convulsively rolling on the 
floor, her swollen face purplish-black with the poi- 
son, her mouth emitting foam like a mad dog. There 
is no doubt that the little murderess intends to fol- 
low her rival to the tomb. She has given the chem- 
ist her entire fortune as pay for the drop of poison; 
he may kiss her, if he likes ! All shame, all womanly 
reserve are gone : what does anything matter now ? 
It is a true study of jealousy, because the little crea- 
ture does not dream of attacking the man who de- 
serted her; all her hellish energy is directed against 
the woman. Indeed the poison that she buys will 
not transform her rival more completely than the 
dreadful poison of jealousy has already trans- 
formed her from what she was to what she is. 

The language and metre fit the thought. Tenny- 
son passed a severe judgment on the first line 

Now that I, tying thy glass mask tightly 

saying that it lacked smoothness, that it was a very 
difficult mouthful. But is this not intentional and 
absolutely right? The woman is speaking slowly 
with compressed lips, her voice convulsed with ter- 
rible hatred and the terrible resolution for revenge. 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 201 

THE LABORATORY 

ANCIEN REGIME 

1844 



Now that I, tying thy glass mask tightly, 
May gaze thro' these faint smokes curling whitely, 
As thou pliest thy trade in this devil's-smithy — 
Which is the poison to poison her, prithee? 

II 

He is with her, and they know that I know 
Where they are, what they do : they believe my tears flow 
While they laugh, laugh at me, at me fled to the drear 
Empty church, to pray God in, for them ! — I am here. 

HI 

Grind away, moisten and mash up thy paste, 
Pound at thy powder, — I am not in haste ! 
Better sit thus, and observe thy strange things, 
Than go where men wait me and dance at the King*s. 

IV 

That in the mortar — you call it a gum? 

Ah, the brave tree whence such gold oozings come ! 

And yonder soft phial, the exquisite blue. 

Sure to taste sweetly, — is that poison too? 



Had I but all of them, thee and thy treasures, 
What a wild crowd of invisible pleasures ! 
To carry pure death in an earring, a casket, 
A signet, a fan-mount, a filigree basket I 



202 BROWNING 

VI 

Soon, at the King's, a mere lozenge to give, 
And Pauline should have just thirty minutes to livel 
But to light a pastile, and Elise, with her head 
And her breast and her arms and her hands, should drop 
dead! 

VII 

Quick — is it finished ? The colour's too grim ! 
Why not soft hke the phial's, enticing and dim? 
Let it brighten her drink, let her turn it and stir, 
And try it and taste, ere she fix and prefer 1 

VIII 

What a drop ! She's not little, no minion like me ! 
That's why she ensnared him : this never will free 
The soul from those masculine eyes, — say, "no !" 
To that pulse's magnificent come-and-go. 

IX 

For only last night, as they whispered, I brought 

My own eyes to bear on her so, that I thought 

Could I keep them one half minute fixed, she would fail 

Shrivelled ; she fell not ; yet this does it all ! 

X 

Not that I bid you spare her the pain ; 
Let death be felt and the proof remain : 
Brand, burn up, bite into its grace — 
He is sure to remember her dying face ! 

XI 

Is it done? Take my mask off ! Nay, be not morose; 
It kills her, and this prevents seeing it close : 
The delicate droplet, my whole fortune's fee I 
If it hurts her, beside, can it ever hurt me? 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 203 

XII 

Now, take all my jewels, gorge gold to your fill, 
You may kiss me, old man, on my mouth if you will ! 
But brush this dust off me, lest horror it brings 
Ere I know it— next moment I dance at the King's I 

Fra Lippo Lip pi and Andrea del Sarto are both 
great art poems, and both in striking contrast. The 
former is dynamic, the latter static. The tumuUuous 
vivacity of the gamin who became a painter con- 
trasts finely with the great technician, a fellow al- 
most damned in a fair wife. Fra Lippo Lippi was 
a street mucker, like Gavroche; he unconsciously 
learned to paint portraits by the absolute necessity 
of studying human faces on the street. Nothing 
sharpens observation like this. He had to be able 
to tell at a glance whether the man he accosted would 
give him food or a kick. When they took him to the 
cloister, he obtained a quite new idea about religion. 
He naturally judged that, as he judged everything 
else in life, from the practical point of view. Here- 
tofore, like many small boys, he had rather despised 
religion, and thought the monks were fools. "Don't 
you believe it," he cries : "there is a lot in religion. 
You get free clothes, free shelter, three meals a day, 
and you don't have to work ! Why, it's the easiest 
thing I know." The monks discovered his talent 



204 BROWNING 

with pencil and brush, and they made him decorate 
the chapel. When the work was done, he called 
them in. To their amazement and horror, the saints 
and angels, instead of being ideal faces, were the 
living portraits of the familiar figures about the 
cloister. "Why, there's the iceman! there's the 
laundress!" He rebelled when they told him this 
was wicked : he said it was all a part of God's world, 
that the business of the artist was to interpret life; 
he wished they would let him enter the pulpit, take 
the Prior's place, and preach a sermon that would 
make them all sit up. 

The philosophy of aesthetics has never been more 
truly or more succinctly stated than in these lines : 

Or say there's beauty with no soul at all — 

(I never saw it — put the case the same — ) 

If you get simple beauty and nought else, 

You get about the best thing God invents : 

That's somewhat : and you'll find the soul you have 

missed, 
Within yourself, when you return him thanks. 

Contemplation of beautiful objects in nature, art, 
and literature, which perhaps at first sight have no 
significance, gradually awakens in our own hearts a 
dawning sense of what Beauty may mean; and thus 
enlarges and develops our minds, and makes them 
susceptible to the wonder and glory of life. 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 205 

The relation of art to life — art being the teacher 
that makes us understand life — is perfectly well un- 
derstood by Fra Lippo Lippi. 

For, don't you mark? we're made so that we love 
First when we see them painted, things we have passed 
Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see. 

If one Stands to-day in the Ancient and Modern 
Gallery in Florence, and contemplates Fra Lippo 
Lippi's masterpiece, The Coronation of the Virgin, 
and reads the lines about it in this poem, one will get 
a new idea of the picture. It is a representation of 
the painter's whole nature, half genius, half mucker 
— the painting is a glory of form and color, and 
then in the corner the artist had the assurance to 
place himself in his monk's dress among the saints 
and angels, where he looks as much out of place as 
a Bowery Boy in a Fifth Avenue drawing-room. 
Not content with putting himself in the picture, he 
stuck a Latin tag on himself, which means, 'This 
fellow did the job." 

Browning loves Fra Lippo Lippi, in spite of the 
man's impudence and debauchery; because the 
painter loved life, had a tremendous zest for it, and 
was not ashamed of his enthusiasm. The words 
he speaks came from the poet's own heart : 



206 BROWNING 

The world and life's too big to pass for a dream. . . , 
It makes me mad to see what men shall do 
And we in our graves ! This world's no blot for us, 
Nor blank; it means intensely, and means good: 
To find its meaning is my meat and drink. 

The change from Fra Lippo Lippi to Andrea del 
Sarto is the change from a blustering March day to 
a mild autumn twilight. The original picture in 
Florence which inspired the poem represents Andrea 
and his wife sitting together, while she is holding 
the letter from King Francis. This is a poem of 
acquiescence, as the other is a poem of protest, and 
never was language more fittingly adapted to the 
mood in each instance. One can usually recognise 
Andrea's pictures clear across the gallery rooms ; he 
has enveloped them all in a silver-grey gossamer 
mist, and in some extraordinary manner Browning 
has contrived to clothe his poem in the same diaph- 
anous garment. It is a poem of twilight, of calm, 
of failure in success. Andrea's pictures are superior 
technically to those of his great contemporaries — 
Rafael, Michel Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci — but 
their imperfect works have a celestial glory, the 
glory of aspiration, absent from his perfect produc- 
tions. His work indeed is. 

Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null, 
Dead perfection, no more. 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 207 

It IS natural, that he, whose paintings show per- 
fection of form without spirit, should have married 
a woman of physical beauty devoid of soul. She 
has ruined him, but she could not have ruined him 
had he been a different man. He understands her, 
however, in the quiet light of his own failure. He 
tells her she must not treat him so badly that he 
can not paint at all ; and adds the necessary explana- 
tion that his ceasing to paint would stop her supplies 
of cash. For although it is incomprehensible to 
her, people are willing to give large sums of money 
for her ridiculous husband's ridiculous daubs. His 
mind, sensitive to beauty, is drunk with his wife's 
loveliness of face and form; and like all confirmed 
drunkards, he can not conquer himself now, though 
otherwise he knows it means death and damnation. 
He has a complete knowledge of the whole range of 
his powers, and of his limitations. He can not help 
feehng pride in his marvellous technique, that he 
can do what other men dream of doing; but he 
knows that without aspiration the soul is dead. 

Poor Andrea ! History has treated him harshly. 
He is known throughout all time as "the tailor's 
son/* and Browning has given him in this immortal 
poem a condemnation that much of his work does 
not really deserve. For there is inspiration in many 



208 BROWNING 

of Andrea's Madonnas. Browning, with his fixed 
idea of the glory of the imperfect, the divine evi- 
dence of perpetual development, could not forgive 
Andrea for being called the "faultless painter." 
Thus Browning has made of him a horrible example, 
has used him merely as the text for a sermon. 

There was just enough truth to give Browning 
his opportunity. The superiority of Rafael over 
Andrea lies precisely in the aspiration of the for- 
mer's work. Schopenhauer says the whole Chris- 
tian religion is in the face of Rafael's Saint Cecilia, 
"an entire and certain gospel." Andrea's virgins 
have more of the beauty of this world: Rafael's 
have the beauty of holiness. 

ANDREA DEL SARTO 
(called "the faultless painter") 
1855 
But do not let us quarrel any more, 
No, my Lucrezia ; bear with me for once : 
Sit down and all shall happen as you wish. 
You turn your face, but does it bring your heart ? 
I'll work then for your friend's friend, never fear. 
Treat his own subject after his own way, 
Fix his own time, accept too his own price, 
And shut the money into this small hand 
When next it takes mine. Will it? tenderly? 
Oh, I'll content him, — but to-morrow, Love ! 
I often am much wearier than you think. 
This evening more than usual, and it seems 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 209 

As if — forgive now — should you let me sit 

Here by the window with your hand in mine 

And look a half-hour forth on Fiesole, 

Both of one mind, as married people use, 

Quietly, quietly the evening through, 

I might get up to-morrow to my work 

Cheerful and fresh as ever. Let us try. 

To-morrow, how you shall be glad for this 1 

Your soft hand is a woman of itself, 

And mine the man's bared breast she curls inside. 

Don't count the time lost, neither ; you must serve 

For each of the five pictures we require : 

It saves a model. So ! keep looking so — 

My serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds ! 

• — How could you ever prick those perfect ears, 

Even to put the pearl there ! oh, so sweet — 

My face, my moon, my everybody's moon, 

Which everybody looks on and calls his, 

And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn. 

While she looks — no one's : very dear, no less. 

You smile ? why, there's my picture ready made, 

There's what we painters call our harmony 1 

A common greyness silvers everything, — 

All in a twilight, you and I alike 

— You, at the point of your first pride in me 

(That's gone you know), — but I, at every point; 

My youth, my hope, my art, being all toned down 

To yonder sober pleasant Fiesole. 

There's the bell cHnking from the chapel-top ; 

That length of convent-wall across the way 

Holds the trees safer, huddled more inside ; 

The last monk leaves the garden ; days decrease, 

And autumn grows, autumn in everything. 

Eh ? the whole seems to fall into a shape 



210 BROWNING 

As if I saw alike my work and self 

And all that I was born to be and do, 

A twilight-piece. Love, we are in God's hand. 

How strange now, looks the life he makes us lead; 

So free we seem, so fettered fast we are 1 

I feel he laid the fetter : let it lie I 

This chamber for example — turn your head — 

All that's behind us 1 You don't understand 

Nor care to understand about my art, 

But you can hear at least when people speak : 

And that cartoon, the second from the door 

— It is the thing, Love ! so such things should be — i 

Behold Madonna ! — I am bold to say. 

I can do with my pencil what I know, 

What I see, what at bottom of my heart 

I wish for, if I ever wish so deep — 

Do easily, too — when I say, perfectly, 

I do not boast, perhaps: yourself are judge. 

Who listened to the Legate's talk last week. 

And just as much they used to say in France. 

At any rate *tis easy, all of it ! 

No sketches first, no studies, that's long past : 

I do what many dream of, all their lives, 

— Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do, 

And fail in doing. I could count twenty such 

On twice your fingers, and not leave this town, 

Who strive — you don't know how the others strive 

To paint a little thing like that you smeared 

Carelessly passing with your robes afloat, — 

Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says, 

(I know his name, no matter) — so much lessl 

Well, less is more, Lucrezia : I am judged. 

There burns a truer light of God in them. 

In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain. 

Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to prompt 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 211 

This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine. 

Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know, 

Reach many a time a heaven that's shut to me, 

Enter and take their place there sure enough, 

Though they come back and cannot tell the world. 

My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here. 

The sudden blood of these men ! at a word — 

Praise them, it boils, or blame them, it boils too. 

I, painting from myself and to myself, 

Know what I do, am unmoved by men's blame 

Or their praise either. Somebody remarks 

Morello's outline there is wrongly traced, 

His hue mistaken; what of that? or else, 

Rightly traced and well ordered; what of that? 

Speak as they please, what does the mountain care? 

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, 

Or what's a heaven for? All is silver-grey 

Placid and perfect with my art : the worse I 

I know both what I want and what might gain, 

And yet how profitless to know, to sigh 

"Had I been two, another and myself, 

"Our head would have o'erlooked the world !" No doubt. 

Yonder's a work now, of that famous youth 

The Urbinate who died five years ago. 

(Tis copied, George Vasari sent it me.) 

Well, I can fancy how he did it all. 

Pouring his soul, with kings and popes to see. 

Reaching, that heaven might so replenish him, 

Above and through his art — for it gives way; 

That arm is wrongly put — and there again — 

A fault to pardon in the drawing's lines. 

Its body, so to speak : its soul is right. 

He means right — that, a child may understand. 

Still, what an arm ! and I could alter it : 

But all the play, the insight and the stretch — 



212 BROWNING 

Out of me, out of me ! And wherefore out? 

Had you enjoined them on me, given me soul, 

We might have risen to Rafael, I and you 1 

Nay, Love, you did give all I asked, I think — 

More than I merit, yes, by many times. 

But had you — oh, with the same perfect brow. 

And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth, 

And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird 

The fowler's pipe, and follows to the snare — 

Had you, with these the same, but brought a mind I 

Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged 

"God and the glory ! never care for gain. 

"The present by the future, what is that? 

"Live for fame, side by side with Agnolo 1 

"Rafael is waiting : up to God, all three !" 

I might have done it for you. So it seems : 

Perhaps not. All is as God over-rules. 

Beside, incentives come from the soul's self; 

The rest avail not. Why do I need you? 

What wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo? 

In this world, who can do a thing, will not ; 

And who would do it, cannot, I perceive : 

Yet the will's somewhat — somewhat, too, the power- 

And thus we half-men struggle. At the end, 

God, I conclude, compensates, punishes. 

'Tis safer for me, if the award be strict. 

That I am something underrated here. 

Poor this long while, despised, to speak the truth. 

I dared not, do you know, leave home all day, 

For fear of chancing on the Paris lords. 

The best is when they pass and look aside ; 

But they speak sometimes ; I must bear it all. 

Well may they speak ! That Francis, that first time, 

And that long festal year at Fontainebleau 1 

I surely then could sometimes leave the ground, 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 213 

Put on the glory, Rafael's daily wear, 

In that humane great monarch's golden look, — 

One finger in his beard or twisted curl 

Over his mouth's good mark that made the smile. 

One arm about my shoulder, round my neck. 

The jingle of his gold chain in my ear, 

I painting proudly with his breath on me, 

All his court round him, seeing with his eyes, 

Such frank French eyes, and such a fire of souls 

Profuse, my hand kept plying by those hearts, — 

And, best of all, this, this, this face beyond, 

This in the background, waiting on my work. 

To crown the issue with a last reward ! 

A good time, was it not, my kingly days ? 

And had you not grown restless . . . but I know — 

*Tis done and past; 'twas right, my instinct said; 

Too live the life grew, golden and not grey. 

And I'm the weak-eyed bat no sun should tempt 

Out of the grange whose four walls make his world. 

How could it end in any other way? 

You called me, and I came home to your heart. 

The triumph was — to reach and stay there ; since 

I reached it ere the triumph, what is lost? 

Let my hands frame your face in your hair's gold, 

You beautiful Lucrezia that are mine ! 

"Rafael did this, Andrea painted that; 

"The Roman's is the better when you pray, 

"But still the other's Virgin was his wife — '* 

Men will excuse me. I am glad to judge 

Both pictures in your presence ; clearer grows 

My better fortune, I resolve to think. 

For, do you know, Lucrezia, as God lives. 

Said one day Agnolo, his very self. 

To Rafael ... I have known it all these years . . . 

(When the yoimg man was flaming out his thoughts 



214 BROWNING 

Upon a palace-wall for Rome to see, 

Too lifted up In heart because of it) 

''Friend, there's a certain sorry little scrub 

"Goes up and down our Florence, none cares how, 

"Who, were he set to plan and execute 

"As you are, pricked on by your popes and kings, 

"Would bring the sweat into that brow of yours 1" 

To Rafael's I — And indeed the arm is wrong. 

I hardly dare . . . yet, only you to see. 

Give the chalk here — quick, thus the line should go ! 

Ay, but the soul I he's Rafael I rub it out 1 

Still, all I care for, if he spoke the truth, 

(What he? why, who but Michel Agnolo? 

Do you forget already words like those?) 

If really there was such a chance, so lost, — 

Is, whether you're — not grateful — but more pleased. 

Well, let me think so. And you smile indeed 1 

This hour has been an hour I Another smile? 

If you would sit thus by me every night 

I should work better, do you comprehend? 

I mean that I should earn more, give you more. 

See, it is settled dusk now ; there's a star ; 

Morello's gone, the watch-lights show the wall. 

The cue-owls speak the name we call them by. 

Come from the window, love, — come in, at last. 

Inside the melancholy little house 

We built to be so gay with. God is just. 

King Francis may forgive me: oft at nights 

When I look up from painting, eyes tired out, 

The walls become illumined, brick from brick 

Distinct, instead of mortar, fierce bright gold, 

That gold of his I did cement them with ! 

Let us but love each other. Must you go? 

That Cousin here again? he waits outside? 

Must see you — you, and not with me ? Those loans ? 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 215 

More gaming debts to pay? you smiled for that? 

Well, let smiles buy me ! have you more to spend ? 

While hand and eye and something of a heart 

Are left me, work's my ware, and what's it worth? 

I'll pay my fancy. Only let me sit 

The grey remainder of the evening out, 

Idle, you call it, and muse perfectly 

How I could paint, were I but back in France, 

One picture, just one more — the Virgin's face, 

Not yours this time ! I want you at my side 

To hear them — that is, Michel Agnolo — 

Judge all I do and tell you of its worth. 

Will you? To-morrow, satisfy your friend. 

I take the subjects for his corridor, 

Finish the portrait out of hand — there, there, 

And throw him in another thing or two 

If he demurs ; the whole should prove enough 

To pay for this same Cousin's freak. Beside, 

What's better and what's all I care about, 

Get you the thirteen scudi for the ruff ! 

Love, does that please you ? Ah, but what does he, 

The Cousin ! what does he to please you more ? 

I am grown peaceful as old age to-night. 
I regret little, I would change still less. 
Since there my past life lies, why alter it? 
The very wrong to Francis ! — it is true 
I took his coin, was tempted and complied, 
And built this house and sinned, and all is said. 
My father and my mother died of want. 
Well, had I riches of my own? you see 
How one gets rich ! Let each one bear his lot 
They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they died : 
And I have laboured somewhat in my time 
And not been paid profusely. Some good son 



216 BROWNING 

Paint my two hundred pictures — let him try I 
No doubt, there's something strikes a balance. Yes, 
You loved me quite enough, it seems to-night. 
This must suffice me here. What would one have? 
In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance- 
Four great walls in the New Jerusalem, 
Meted on each side by the angel's reed, 
For Leonard, Rafael, Agnolo and me 
To cover — the three first without a wife. 
While I have mine ! So — still they overcome 
Because there's still Lucrezia, — as I choose. 

Again the Cousin's whistle ! Go, my Love. 

Karshish and Cleon are studies of the early days 
of Christianity. Each man writes a letter — one to 
a professor, one to a king — which reveals both his 
own nature and the steady advance of the kingdom 
of God. The contrast between the scientist and the 
man of letters is not favorable to the latter. Kar- 
shish is an ideal scientist, with a naturally skeptical 
mind, yet wide open, wilHng to learn from any and 
every source, thankful for every new fact ; Cleon is 
an intellectual snob. His mind is closed by its own 
culture, and he regards it as absurd that any man in 
humble circumstances can teach him anything. 
Learning, which has made the scientist modest, has 
made Cleon arrogant. Such is the difference be- 
tween the ideal man of science, and the typical man 
of culture. 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 21Z 

Young Karshish was the best student in his de- 
partment at the university; he has won a travelHng 
fellowship, and writes letters home to Professor 
Abib, the Dean of the Graduate School. This is 
the twenty-second letter, and although we have not 
seen the others, we may easily conjecture their style 
and contents. They resemble Darwin's method of 
composition describing his tour around the world — 
one fact is noted accurately and then another. This 
particular letter is entrusted to a messenger who 
had the pink-eye; the young doctor easily cured 
him, and the man having no money, begged to give 
some service. He winks his eyes gladly in the strong 
sunlight which had hurt him so cruelly until the 
doctor came to his relief. Very well ! he shall run 
with an epistle. 

Karshish has met Lazarus : and it is significant of 
Browning's method that it is not the resurrection 
from the grave which interests him, nor what hap- 
pened to Lazarus in the tomb; it is the profound 
spiritual change in the man. Lazarus does not act 
like a faker; he is not sensational, does not care 
whether you believe his story or not, is a thoroughly 
quiet, intelligent, sensible man. Only his conduct 
has ceased to be swayed by any selfish interest, and 
there is some tremendous force working in his life 



218 BROWNING 

that puzzles the physician. It is amusing how the 
latter tries to shake off his obsession, how he tries 
to persuade himself that Lazarus had a prolonged 
epileptic fit, or that he is now mad ; how he tries to 
interest himself once more in the fauna and flora 
of the country. Impossible! the story of Lazarus 
dominates him. 

His letter is naturally full of apologies for writing 
to the great Abib on such a theme. He is afraid 
Abib will be disgusted with him, will call him home, 
as a disgrace to the university he represents. What ! 
my favorite student, carefully trained in science, to 
swallow the story of the first madman or swindler 
he meets ? A man raised from the dead ? Such cases 
are diurnal. What would a modern professor think 
if one of his travelling fellows wrote home from 
South America that he had met a man raised from 
the dead, and was really impressed by his story? 
His fellowship would be instantly taken away from 
him. 

He anticipates Abib's suggestions. If you think 
there is really anything interesting in the yarn, why 
don't you seek out the magician who brought him 
back to life? Oh, naturally, I thought of that the 
first thing. But I discovered that the doctor who 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 219 

wrought the cure of Lazarus is dead, lost his life in 
some obscure tumult. 

It is with the utmost difficulty that Karshish 
finally brings himself to write what will seem much 
worse even than the acceptance of the story of 
Lazarus. But something impels him to out with it. 
Lazarus says — God forgive me for uttering such 
nonsensical blasphemy — that the doctor who cured 
him was no doctor at all — was . . . was . . . 
was Almighty God Himself ! He says God appeared 
on the earth in human form, that Lazarus knew Him 
personally, spoke with Him, ate meals with Him — 
and then suddenly in a revulsion of feeling at his 
daring to write such trash to Abib, he tries to force 
his mind back to report on scientific observations. 

He thinks indeed he has ended his letter; when 
the stupendous idea of Jesus Christ rushes over his 
mind like a flood, and he adds a postscript. Would 
it not be wonderful. Professor, if Lazarus were 
right? If the Supreme Force we recognise were 
really a God of Love, who died to save us? The 
madman saith He said so: it is strange, ... it 
is strange . . . 

And so we leave Karshish in a muse : but surely 
he is not far from the Kingdom of God. 



220 BROWNING 

As this poem indicates the manner in which Chris- 
tianity in the early days spread from man to man, 
while many are amazed and many doubt, so Cleon 
gives us the picture of the Gospel as carried over 
the world by Paul. Cleon in his own distinguished 
person sums up the last word of Greek culture, in its 
intellectual prowess, its serene beauty, its many- 
sided charm, and its total inability to save the world. 
Cleon is an absolute pessimist. He is sincere ; such 
cant as the "choir invisible" means nothing to him, 
for death will turn his splendid mind into a pinch 
of dust. Death is far more horrible to poets and 
artists than to the ignorant, he assures the king, 
who ha^ thought just the opposite : is it not dreadful 
to think that after my death people will be singing 
the songs that I have written, while all that remains 
of me is in a little urn? He does not deceive him- 
self with phrases. Death is the end of us, and there- 
fore self-consciousness is a mistake. The animals 
without it are happier and better than we. How 
terrible it is to think that a man like me who has de- 
veloped steadily throughout my whole life should 
now face the blank wall of annihilation just when 
my mind is at its best, when my senses are most 
keen to profit by the richness and wonder of life! 
The thought that individual development is thus 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 221 

meaningless is so repugnant not merely to his heart's 
desire but to his mental sense of the fitness of things, 
that it has sometimes seemed as if there must be a 
future life where the soul can pursue its natural 
course ahead. But he dismisses this thought as im- 
possible; for if there were a future life, I should be 
the first to know of it. It would certainly have been 
revealed to a splendid mind like mine. It is the moun- 
tain peak that catches the first flush of the dawn, 
not the valley: it is the topmost branch of the great 
tree that gets the first whisper of the coming breeze. 
It is a pity that Cleon had not heard the Gospel. I 
thank thee, O Father, that Thou hast hidden these 
things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed 
them unto babes. Even so. Father : for so it seemed 
good in Thy sight. It was not through men like 
Cleon that the Gospel made its first advance. 

His postscript, like that of Karshlsh, is interest- 
ing, though strikingly different. The king had en- 
closed a letter to Paul, but as he did not know Paul's 
address, he wondered if Cleon would not be kind 
enough to see that the evangelist obtained the let- 
ter. Cleon was decidedly vexed. I neither know 
nor care where Paul may be. You don't suppose 
for a moment that Paul knows anything I don't 
know ? You don't suppose anything Paul could say 



222 BROWNING 

would have any weight for men like me? Oh, I 
have heard of him ; I was taking a constitutional one 
day, and I saw a little group of persons listening to 
an orator. I touched a man on the shoulder, and I 
said, What is that idiot talking about? And he re- 
plied that the man said that a person named Jesus 
Christ had risen from the dead, and could save all 
those who believed on Him from death. What crazy 
nonsense people swallow! So Cleon smiled in his 
wisdom and went on his way. But through the lines 
of his speech we feel the rising tide of Christianity, 
where 

Far back, through creeks and inlets making, 

Comes silent, flooding in, the main. 

AN EPISTLE 

CONTAINING THE STRANGE MEDICAL EXPERIENCE OF KARSHISH, 
THE ARAB PHYSICIAN 

1855 

Karshish, the picker-up of learning's crumbs. 

The not-incurious in God's handiwork 

(This man's-flesh he hath admirably made, 

Blown like a bubble, kneaded like a paste. 

To coop up and keep down on earth a space 

That puff of vapour from his mouth, man's soul) 

— To Abib, all-sagacious in our art. 

Breeder in me of what poor skill I boast ; 

Like me inquisitive how pricks and cracks 

Befall the flesh through too much stress and strain. 

Whereby the wily vapour fain would slip 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 223 

Back and rejoin its source before the term,— • 

And aptest in contrivance (under God) 

To baffle it by deftly stopping such : — 

The vagrant Scholar to his Sage at home 

Sends greeting (health and knowledge, fame with 

peace) 
Three samples of true snake-stone — rarer still. 
One of the other sort, the melon-shaped, 
(But fitter, pounded fine, for charms than drugs) 
And writeth now the twenty-second time. 

My journeyings were brought to Jericho : 
Thus I resume. Who studious in our art 
Shall count a little labour unrepaid ? 
I have shed sweat enough, left flesh and bone 
On many a flinty furlong of this land. 
Also, the country-side is all on fire 
With rumours of a marching hitherward: 
Some say Vespasian cometh, some, his son. 
A black lynx snarled and pricked a tufted ear ; 
Lust of my blood inflamed his yellow balls : 
I cried and threw my staff and he was gone. 
Twice have the robbers stripped and beaten me, 
And once a town declared me for a spy; 
But at the end, I reach Jerusalem, 
Since this poor covert where I pass the night, 
This Bethany, lies scarce the distance thence 
A man with plague-sores at the third degree 
Runs till he drops down dead. Thou laughest here 1 
*Sooth, it elates me, thus reposed and safe, 
To void the stuffing of my travel-scrip 
And share with thee whatever Jewry yields. 
A viscid choler is observable 
In tertians, I was nearly bold to say ; 
And falling-sickness hath a happier cure 



224 BROWNING 

Than our school wots of : there's a spider here 

Weaves no web, watches on the ledge of tombs, 

Sprinkled with mottles on an ash-gray back ; 

Take five and drop them . . . but who knows his mind, 

The Syrian runagate I trust this to? 

His service payeth me a sublimate 

Blown up his nose to help the ailing eye. 

Best wait : I reach Jerusalem at morn, 

There set in order my experiences, 

Gather what most deserves, and give thee all — 

Or I might add, Judaea's gum-tragacanth 

Scales off in purer flakes, shines clearer-grained. 

Cracks 'twixt the pestle and the porphyry, 

In fine exceeds our produce. Scalp-disease 

Confounds me, crossing so with leprosy — 

Thou hadst admired one sort I gained at Zoar — 

But zeal outruns discretion. Here I end. 

Yet stay : my Syrian blinketh gratefully, 
Protesteth his devotion is my price — 
Suppose I write what harms not, though he steal ? 
I half resolve to tell thee, yet I blush, 
What set me off a-writing first of all. 
An itch I had, a sting to write, a tang ! 
For, be it this town's barrenness — or else 
The Man had something in the look of him — 
His case has struck me far more than 'tis worth. 
So, pardon if — (lest presently I lose 
In the great press of novelty at hand 
The care and pains this somehow stole from me) 
I bid thee take the thing while fresh in mind, 
Almost in sight — for, wilt tliou have the truth ? 
The very man is gone from me but now. 
Whose ailment is the subject of discourse. 
Thus then, and let thy better wit help all ! 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 225 

'Tis but a case of mania — subinduced 
By epilepsy, at the turning-point 
Of trance prolonged unduly some three days : 
When, by the exhibition of some drug 
Or spell, exorcization, stroke of art. 
Unknown to me and which 'twere well to know, 
The evil thing out-breaking all at once 
Left the man whole and sound of body indeed, — 
But, flinging (so to speak) life's gates too wide, 
Making a clear house of it too suddenly, 
The first conceit that entered might inscribe 
Whatever it was minded on the wall 
So plainly at that vantage, as it were, 
(First come, first served) that nothing subsequent 
Attaineth to erase those fancy-scrawls 
The just-returned and new-established soul 
Hath gotten now so thoroughly by heart 
That henceforth she will read or these or none. 
And first — the man's own firm conviction rests 
That he was dead (in fact they buried him) 
— That he was dead and then restored to life 
By a Nazarene physician of his tribe : 
— 'Sayeth, the same bade "Rise," and he did rise. 
"Such cases are diurnal," thou wilt cry. 
Not so this figment ! — not, that such a fume. 
Instead of giving way to time and health, 
Should eat itself into the life of life. 
As saffron tingeth flesh, blood, bones and all I 
For see, how he takes up the after-life. 
The man — it is one Lazarus a Jew, 
Sanguine, proportioned, fifty years of age, 
The body's habit wholly laudable, 
As much, indeed, beyond the common health 
As he were made and put aside to show. 
Think, could we penetrate by any drug 



226 BROWNING 

And bathe the wearied soul and worried flesh, 

And bring it clear and fair, by three days' sleep ! 

Whence has the man the balm that brightens all? 

This grown man eyes the world now like a child. 

Some elders of his tribe, I should premise, 

Led in their friend, obedient as a sheep, 

To bear my inquisition. While they spoke, 

Now sharply, now with sorrow, — told the case, — • 

He listened not except I spoke to him, 

But folded his two hands and let them talk. 

Watching the flies that buzzed : and yet no fool. 

And that's a sample how his years must go. 

Look, if a beggar, in fixed middle-life, 

Should find a treasure, — can he use the same 

With straitened habits and with tastes starved small, 

And take at once to his impoverished brain 

The sudden element that changes things. 

That sets the undreamed-of rapture at his hand 

And puts the cheap old joy in the scorned dust? 

Is he not such an one as moves to mirth — 

Warily parsimonious, when no need. 

Wasteful as drunkenness at undue times? 

All prudent counsel as to what befits 

The golden mean, is lost on such an one : 

The man's fantastic will is the man's law. 

So here — we call the treasure knowledge, say. 

Increased beyond the fleshly faculty — 

Heaven opened to a soul while yet on earth. 

Earth forced on a soul's use while seeing heaven : 

The man is witless of the size, the sum. 

The value in proportion of all things. 

Or whether it be little or be much. 

Discourse to him of prodigious armaments 

Assembled to besiege his city now. 

And of the passing of a mule with gourds — • 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 227 

Tis one I Then take it on the other side, 

Speak of some trifling fact, — he will gaze rapt 

With stupour at its very littleness, 

(Far as I see) as if in that indeed 

He caught prodigious import, whole results ; 

And so will turn to us the bystanders 

In ever the same stupour (note this point) 

That we too see not with his opened eyes. 

Wonder and doubt come wrongly into play, 

Preposterously, at cross purposes. 

Should his child sicken unto death, — why, look 

For scarce abatement of his cheerfulness, 

Or pretermission of the daily craft 1 

While a word, gesture, glance from that same child 

At play or in the school or laid asleep 

Will startle him to an agony of fear, 

Exasperation, just as like. Demand 

The reason why — "'tis but a word," object — 

"A gesture" — he regards thee as our lord 

Who lived there in the pyramid alone, 

Looked at us (dost thou mind?) when, being young, 

We both would unadvisedly recite 

Some charm's beginning, from that book of his, 

Able to bid the sun throb wide and burst 

All into stars, as suns grown old are wont. 

Thou and the child have each a veil alike 

Thrown o'er your heads, from under which ye both 

Stretch your blind hands and trifle with a match 

Over a mine of Greek fire, did ye know I 

He holds on firmly to some thread of life — 

(It is the life to lead perforcedly) 

Which runs across some vast distracting orb 

Of glory on either side that meagre thread. 

Which, conscious of, he must not enter yet — 

The spiritual life around the earthly life : 



228 BROWNING 

The law of that is known to him as this, 

His heart and brain move there, his feet stay here. 

So is the man perplext with impulses 

Sudden to start off crosswise, not straight on, 

Proclaiming what is right and wrong across, 

And not along, this black thread through the blaze— 

"It should be" balked by "here it cannot be." 

And oft the man's soul springs into his face 

As if he saw again and heard again 

His sage that bade him "Rise" and he did rise. 

Something, a word, a tick o* the blood within 

Admonishes : then back he sinks at once 

To ashes, who was very fire before. 

In sedulous recurrence to his trade 

Whereby he earneth him the daily bread ; 

And studiously the humbler for that pride, 

Professedly the faultier that he knows 

God's secret, while he holds the thread of life. 

Indeed the especial marking of the man 

Is prone submission to the heavenly will — 

Seeing it, what it is, and why it is. 

'Sayeth, he will wait patient to the last 

For that same death which must restore his being 

To equilibrium, body loosening soul 

Divorced even now by premature full growth : 

He will live, nay, it pleaseth him to live 

So long as God please, and just how God please. 

He even seeketh not to please God more 

(Which meaneth, otherwise) than as God please. 

Hence, I perceive not he affects to preach 

The doctrine of his sect whate'er it be, 

Make proselytes as madmen thirst to do : 

How can he give his neighbour the real ground. 

His own conviction? Ardent as he is — 

Call his great truth a lie, why, still the old 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 229 

**Be it as God please" reassureth him. 

I probed the sore as thy disciple should : 

*'How, beast," said I, "this stolid carelessness 

Sufficeth thee, when Rome is on her march 

To stamp out like a little spark thy town, 

Thy tribe, thy crazy tale and thee at once ?" 

He merely looked with his large eyes on me. 

The man is apathetic, you deduce ? 

Contrariwise, he loves both old and young, 

Able and weak, affects the very brutes 

And birds — how say I ? flowers of the field — 

As a wise workman recognises tools 

In a master's workshop, loving what they make. 

Thus is the man as harmless as a lamb : 

Only impatient, let him do his best, 

At ignorance and carelessness and sin — 

An indignation which is promptly curbed : 

As when in certain travel I have feigned 

To be an ignoramus in our art 

According to some preconceived design, 

And happed to hear the land's practitioners, 

Steeped in conceit sublimed by ignorance. 

Prattle fantastically on disease. 

Its cause and cure — and I must hold my peace ! 

Thou wilt object — Why have I not ere this 
Sought out the sage himself, the Nazarene 
Who wrought this cure, inquiring at the source, 
Conferring with the frankness that befits ? 
Alas ! it grieveth me, the learned leech 
Perished in a tumult many years ago. 
Accused — our learning's fate — of wizardry. 
Rebellion, to the setting up a rule 
And creed prodigious as described to me. 
His death, which happened when the earthquake fell 



230 BROWNING 

(Prefiguring, as soon appeared, the loss 

To occult learning in our lord the sage 

Who lived there in the pyramid alone) 

Was wrought by the mad people — that's their wont 1 

On vain recourse, as I conjecture it, 

To his tried virtue, for miraculous help — 

How could he stop the earthquake ? That's their way I 

The other imputations must be lies : 

But take one, though I loathe to give it thee, 

In mere respect for any good man's fame. 

(And after all, our patient Lazarus 

Is stark mad ; should we count on what he says ? 

Perhaps not : though in writing to a leech 

*Tis well to keep back nothing of a case.) 

This man so cured regards the curer, then, 

As — God forgive me ! who but God himself, 

Creator and sustainer of the world, 

That came and dwelt in flesh on it awhile I 

— 'Sayeth that such an one was born and lived. 

Taught, healed the sick, broke bread at his own house, 

Then died, with Lazarus by, for aught I know, 

And yet was . . . what I said nor choose repeat. 

And must have so avouched himself, in fact. 

In hearing of this very Lazarus 

Who saith — ^but why all this of what he saith? 

Why write of trivial matters, things of price 

Calling at every moment for remark? 

I noticed on the margin of a pool 

Blue-flowering borage, the Aleppo sort, 

Aboundeth, very nitrous. It is strange I 

Thy pardon for this long and tedious case. 
Which, now that I review it, needs must seem 
Unduly dwelt on, prolixly set forth ! 
Nor I myself discern in what is writ 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 231 

Good cause for the peculiar interest 

And awe indeed this man has touched me with. 

Perhaps the journey's end, the weariness 

Had wrought upon me first. I met him thus : 

I crossed a ridge of short sharp broken hills 

Like an old lion's cheek teeth. Out there came 

A moon made like a face with certain spots 

Multiform, manifold, and menacing: 

Then a wind rose behind me. So we met 

In this old sleepy town at unaware, 

The man and I. I send thee what is writ. 

Regard it as a chance, a matter risked 

To this ambiguous Syrian — he may lose, 

Or steal, or give it thee with equal good. 

Jerusalem's repose shall make amends 

For time this letter wastes, thy time and mine ; 

Till when, once more thy pardon and farewell I 

The very God! think, Abib; dost thou think? 
So, the All-Great, were the All-Loving too — 
So, through the thunder comes a human voice 
Saying, "O heart I made, a heart beats here 1 
Face, my hands fashioned, see it in myself ! 
Thou hast no power nor mayst conceive of mine, 
But love I gave thee, with myself to love. 
And thou must love me who have died for thee I" 
The madman saith He said so : it is strange. 

The poem Childe Roland is unique among Brown- 
ing's monologues. His poetry usually is of the noon- 
day and the market-place ; but this might have been 
written by Coleridge, or Maeterlinck, or Edgar Al- 
lan Poe. It has indeed the "wizard twilight Cole- 
ridge knew." The atmosphere is uncanny and 



232 BROWNING 

ghoul-haunted : the scenery is a series of sombre and 
horrible imaginings. No consistent allegory can 
be made out of it, for which fact we should rejoice. 
It is a poem, not a sermon; it is intended to stim- 
ulate the imagination, rather than awaken the con- 
science. And as we accompany the knight on his 
lonely and fearful journey, we feel thrills caused 
only by works of genius. 

The poem is an example of the power of creative 
imagination. Out of one line from an old ballad 
quoted by Shakespeare, Browning has built up a 
marvellous succession of vivid pictures. The twi- 
light deepens as Childe Roland advances; one can 
feel the darkness coming on. 

.... hands unseen 
Were hanging the night around us fast. 

Although the poem means nothing specifically ex- 
cept a triumphant close to a heart-shaking experi- 
ence, the close is so solemnly splendid that it is diffi- 
cult to repress a shout of physical exultation. One 
lonely man, in the presence of all the Powers of the 
Air, sends out an honest blast of defiance — the indi- 
vidual will against the malignant forces of the whole 
universe. 

What happened when he blew his horn ? Did the 
awful mountains in the blood-red sunset dissolve as 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 2Z^ 

the walls of Jericho fell to a similar sound? Did 
the round, squat Tower vanish like a dream-phan- 
tom? Or was the sound of the horn the last breath 
of the hero? If we believe the former, then Childe 
Roland is telling his experience to a listener; it is 
the song of the man "who came whither he went.'* 
If the latter, which seems to me more dramatic, and 
more like Browning, then the monologue is mur- 
mured by the solitary knight as he advances on his 
darkening path. 

Three entirely different interpretations may be 
made of the poem. First, the Tower is the quest, 
and Success is found only in the moment of Failure. 
Second, the Tower is the quest, and when found is 
worth nothing: the hero has spent his life searching 
something that in the end is seen to be only a round, 
squat, blind turret — for such things do men throw 
away their lives ! Third, the Tower is not the quest 
at all — it is damnation, and when the knight turns 
aside from the true road to seek the Tower, he is 
a lost soul steadily slipping through increasing dark- 
ness to hell. 

Whilst I do not believe this third interpretation, 
for it seems to me contrary to the whole spirit of 
the piece, it is surprisitig that if one reads through 
the poem with that idea and none other in mind, how: 



234 BROWNING 

much support can be found for it. The hoary crip- 
ple is the devil, meant to lead us into temptation ; and 
the third stanza seems for the moment to complete 
this thought. 

If at his counsel I should turn aside 

Into that ominous tract, which, all agree 
Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly 

I did turn as he pointed : 

If all knew that the ominous tract contained the 
Dark Tower, why was the knight outside of it, if 
the Tower were his quest? He turns aside, ac- 
quiescingly: he has given up a life of noble aspira- 
tion, and now hands over his despairing heart in 
surrender to the powers of darkness. He goes on 
his way a beaten man, only hoping that the end may 
not be long delayed. 

Much in the letter of the poem may support this 
view; but the whole spirit of it is opposed to such 
an interpretation, and the ringing close does not 
sound like spiritual failure. Nor do I believe in the 
second interpretation ; for it is quite unlike Browning 
to write a magnificent poem with a cynical conclu- 
sion. 

No, I believe that once upon a time, Roland, Giles, 
Cuthbert, and other knights in solemn assembly took 
an oath to go on the quest of the Dark Tower: to 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 235 

find it or perish on the way. All but these three 
have apparently kept their word ; they have never re- 
turned, and when Roland is on the last stages of his 
journey, he sees why; they have died a horrible 
death. The quest is indeed an unspeakably perilous 
thing : for all but Giles and Cuthbert are dead, and 
these two suffered a fate worse than death — the aw- 
ful fear inspired by something hideous on the march 
changed these splendid specimens of manhood into 
craven traitors. Roland remembers with cruel 
agony the ruddy young face of Cuthbert, glowing 
under its yellow hair: was there ever such a mag- 
nificent fellow? But the path to the Tower had 
shaken his manhood, and disgraced him forever. 
How well Roland remembers the morning when 
Giles took the oath to find the Tower! That was 
ten years ago. The frank, manly young knight 
stepped forth, and declared proudly that he dared 
do all that might become a man. But he had some 
awful experience in the course of the quest that 
changed him from the soul of honor to a whim- 
pering coward. His own companions spat upon him 
and cursed him. 

Roland alone is left. And he has experienced so 
many disappointments that now all hope of finding 
the Tower is dead in his breast. Just one spark of 



236 BROWNING 

manhood remains. He can not succeed, but God 
grant that he may be fit to fail. 

. . . just to fail as they, seemed best, 
And all the doubt was now — should I be fit? 

As he advances, the country becomes an abomina- 
tion of desolation; then appear evidences of strug- 
gle, the marks of monsters : then the awful, boiling 
river, with the nerve-shattering shriek from its 
depths as he thrust in his spear. On the other bank, 
fresh evidences of fearful combats, followed far- 
ther along by the appearance of engines of torture. 
Those of his companions w^ho had survived the 
beasts had there perished in this frightful manner. 
Nevertheless, Roland advances, his eyes on the 
ground. Suddenly the wide wing of some dreadful 
bird of the night brushed his cap, and he looked up 
— to his overwhelming amazement, he sees the 
Tower! He sees it as the sailor sees the rocks on a 
dark night, only when the ship is lost. He sees it in 
a sudden glare of hell; the air is full of mocking 
laughter, the scorn of fiends mingling with the sound 
of the names of their victims, his peers and com- 
rades, all lost ! The ugly misshapen mountains look 
like sinister giants, lying chin upon hand, lazily 
awaiting his destruction. But this atom of human- 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 237. 

ity, in the presence of all the material forces of this 
world and the supernatural powers of darkness, 
places the horn to his lips, and sends out on the eve- 
ning air a shrill blast of utter defiance. He that 
endureth to the end shall be saved. Not his posses- 
sions, not his happiness, not his bodily frame — they 
all succumb : but he shall be saved. 

Thus we may take this wholly romantic poem as 
one more noble illustration of Browning's favorite 
doctrine — Success in Failure. 

"CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME" 

See Edgar's song in Lear 

1855 

My first thought was, he lied in every word. 
That hoary cripple, with malicious eye 
Askance to watch the working of his lie 
On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford 
Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored 
Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby. 

What else should he be set for, with his staflF? 
What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare 
All travellers who might find him posted there. 
And ask the road ? I guessed what skull-like laugh 
Would break, what crutch 'gin write my epitaph 
For pastime in the dusty thoroughfare, 

If at his counsel I should turn aside 
Into that ominous tract which, all agree. 
Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly 



238 BROWNING ' 

I did turn as he pointed : neither pride 
Nor hope rekindling at the end descried, 
So much as gladness that some end might be. 

For, what with my whole world-wide wandering, 
What with my search drawn out through years, my 

hope 
Dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope 

With that obstreperous joy success would bring,—- 

I hardly tried now to rebuke the spring 
My heart made, finding failure in its scope. 

As when a sick man very near to death 
Seems dead indeed, and feels begin and end 
The tears, and takes the farewell of each friend, 
And hears one bid the other go, draw breath 
Freelier outside, ("since all is o'er," he saith, 
"And the blow fallen no grieving can amend ;") 

While some discuss if near the other graves 
Be room enough for this, and when a day 
Suits best for carrying the corpse away, 
With care about the banners, scarves and staves : 
And still the man hears all, and only craves 
He may not shame such tender love and stay. 

Thus, I had so long suffered in this quest. 
Heard failure prophesied so oft, been writ 
So many times among "The Band" — to wit. 
The knights who to the Dark Tower's search addressed 
Their steps — that just to fail as they, seemed best, 
And all the doubt was now — should I be fit? 

So, quiet as despair, I turned from him, 
That hateful cripple, out of his highway 
Into the path he pointed. All the day 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 239 

Had been a dreary one at best, and dim 
Was settling to its close, yet shot one grim 
Red leer to see the plain catch its estray. 

For mark I no sooner was I fairly found 
Pledged to the plain, after a pace or two, 
Than, pausing to throw backward a last view 

O'er the safe road, 'twas gone; gray plain all round: 

Nothing but plain to the horizon's bound. 
I might go on ; naught else remained to do. 

So, on I went. I think I never saw 
Such starved ignoble nature ; nothing throve : 
For flowers — as well expect a cedar grove I 
But cockle, spurge, according to their law 
Might propagate their kind, with none to awe, 
You'd think : a burr had been a treasure trove. 

No I penury, inertness and grimace, 
In some strange sort, were the land's portion. "See 
Or shut your eyes," said Nature peevishly, 
"It nothing skills : I cannot help my case : 
'Tis the Last Judgment's fire must cure this place, 
Calcine its clods and set my prisoners free." 

If there pushed any ragged thistle-stalk 
Above its mates, the head was chopped ; the bents 
Were jealous else. What made those holes and rents 
In the dock's harsh swarth leaves, bruised as to balk 
All hope of greenness ? 'tis a brute must walk 
Pashing their life out, with a brute's intents. 

As for the grass, it grew as scant as hair 
In leprosy ; thin dry blades pricked the mud 
Which underneath looked kneaded up with blood. 



240 BROWNING 

One stiff blind horse, his every bone a-stare, 
Stood stupefied, however he came there : 
Thrust out past service from the devil's stud 1 

Alive? he might be dead for aught I know, 
With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain, 
And shut eyes underneath the rusty mane ; 

Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe ; 

I never saw a brute I hated so ; 
He must be wicked to deserve such pain. 

I shut my eyes and turned them on my heart. 
As a man calls for wine before he fights, 
I asked one draught of earlier, happier sights, 

Ere fitly I could hope to play my part. 

Think first, fight afterwards — the soldier's art : 
One taste of the old time sets all to rights. 

Not itl I fancied Cuthbert's reddening face 

Beneath its garniture of curly gold, 

Dear fellow, till I almost felt him fold 
An arm in mine to fix me to the place, 
That way he used. Alas, one night's disgrace I 

Out went my heart's new fire and left it cold. 

Giles then, the soul of honour — there he stands 

Frank as ten years ago when knighted first. 

What honest man should dare (he said) he durst. 

Good — ^but the scene shifts — faugh ! what hangman hands 

Pin to his breast a parchment? His own bands 

Read it. Poor traitor, spit upon and curst I 

Better this present than a past like that ; 
Back therefore to my darkening path again ! 
No sound, no sight as far as eye could strain. 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 241 

Will the night send a howlet or a bat? 
I asked : when something on the dismal flat 
Came to arrest my thoughts and change their train. 

A sudden little river crossed my path 

As unexpected as a serpent comes. 

No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms ; 
This, as it frothed by, might have been a bath 
For the fiend's glowing hoof — to see the wrath 

Of its black eddy bespate with flakes and spumes. 

So petty yet so spiteful! All along, 
Low scrubby alders kneeled down over it ; 
Drenched willows flung them headlong in a fit 
Of mute despair, a suicidal throng: 
The river which had done them all the wrong, 
Whate'er that was, rolled by, deterred no whit. 

Which, while I forded, — good saints, how I feared 
To set my foot upon a dead man's cheek, 
Each step, or feel the spear I thrust to seek 

For hollows, tangled in his hair or beard ! 

— It may have been a water-rat I speared, 
But, ugh ! it sounded like a baby's shriek. 

Glad was I when I reached the other bank. 
Now for a better country. Vain presage I 
Who were the strugglers, what war did they wage, 
Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank 
Soil to a plash? Toads in a poisoned tank, 
Or wild cats in a red-hot iron cage — 

The fight must so have seemed in that fell cirque. 
What penned them there, with all the plain to choose ? 
No footprint leading to that horrid mews, 



242 BROWNING 

None out of it. Mad brewage set to work 
Their brains, no doubt, like galley-slaves the Turk 
Pits for his pastime, Christians against Jews. 

And more than that — a furlong on — why, there I 
What bad use was that engine for, that wheel. 
Or brake, not wheel — that harrow fit to reel 
Men's bodies out like silk ? with all the air 
Of Tophet's tool, on earth left unaware. 
Or brought to sharpen its rusty teeth of steel. 

Then came a bit of stubbed ground, once a wood. 
Next a marsh, it would seem, and now mere earth 
Desperate and done with: (so a fool finds mirth, 
Makes a thing and then mars it, till his mood 
Changes and off he goes !) within a rood — 
Bog, clay and rubble, sand and stark black dearth. 

Now blotches rankling, coloured gay and grim. 
Now patches where some leanness of the soil's 
Broke into moss or substances like boils ; 
Then came some palsied oak, a cleft in him 
Like a distorted mouth that splits its rim 
Gaping at death, and dies while it recoils. 

And just as far as ever from the end! 

Naught in the distance but the evening, naught 
To point my footstep further ! At the thought, 
A great black bird, Apollyon's bosom-friend. 
Sailed past, nor beat his wide wing dragon-penned 
That brushed my cap — perchance the guide I sought. 

For, looking up, aware I somehow grew, 
'Spite of the dusk, the plain had given place 
All round to mountains — with such name to grace 



DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES 243 

Mere ugly heights and heaps now stolen in view. 

How thus they had surprised me, — solve it, you 1 

How to get from them was no clearer case. 

Yet half I seemed to recognize some trick 

Of mischief happened to me, God knows when — 
In a bad dream perhaps. Here ended, then, 
Progress this way. When, in the very nick 
Of giving up, one time more, came a click 
As when a trap shuts — you're inside the den I 

Burningly it came on me all at once, 
This was the place ! those two hills on the right. 
Crouched like two bulls locked horn in horn in fight ; 

While to the left, a tall scalped mountain . . . Dunce, 

Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce. 
After a life spent training for the sight ! 

Wliat in the midst lay but the Tower itself? 
The round squat turret, blind as the fool's heart, 
Built of brown stone, without a counterpart 
In the whole world. The tempest's mocking elf 
Points to the shipman thus the unseen shelf 
He strikes on, only when the timbers start. 

Not see? because of night perhaps? — why, day 
Came back again for that ! before it left, 
The dying sunset kindled through a cleft : 

The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay, 

Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay, — 
"Now stab and end the creature — to the heft !" 

Not hear? when noise was everywhere! it tolled 
Increasing like a bell. Names in my ears, 
Of all the lost adventurers my peers, — 



244 BROWNING 

How such a one was strong, and such was bold, 
And such was fortunate, yet each of old 
Lost, lost I one moment knelled the woe of years. 

There they stood, ranged along the hillsides, met 
To view the last of me, a living frame 
For one more picture ! in a sheet of flame 
I saw them and I knew them all. And yet 
Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set. 
And blew. *'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came* 



VI 



POEMS OF PARADOX 



THE word paradox comes from two Greek 
words, meaning simply, ^'beyond belief." As 
every one ought to know, a paradox is something 
that read literally is absurd, but if taken in the spirit 
in which it is uttered, may contain profound truth. 
Paradox is simply over-emphasis : and is therefore a 
favorite method of teaching. By the employment 
of paradox the teacher wishes to stress forcibly some 
aspect of the truth which otherwise may not be seen 
at all. Fine print needs a magnifying-glass ; and the 
deep truth hidden in a paradox can not perhaps be- 
come clear unless enlarged by powerful emphasis. 
All teachers know the value of italics. 

Socrates was very fond of paradox : the works of 
Ibsen, Nietzsche, Shaw and Chesterton are full of 
paradoxes : Our Lord's utterances in the New Tes- 
tament are simply one paradox after another. No 
wonder His disciples were often in a maze. It re- 

245 



246 BROWNING 

quires centuries for the truth in some paradoxes to 
become manifest. 

"This was some time a paradox, but now the time gives it 
proof." 

Browning loved a paradox with all his heart. The 
original nature of his mind, his fondness for taking 
the other side, his over-subtlety, all drove him to- 
ward the paradox. He would have made a wonder- 
ful criminal lawyer. He loves to put some imagi- 
nary or historical character on the stand, and permit 
him to speak freely in his own defence; and he par- 
ticularly loves to do this, when the person has re- 
ceived universal condemnation. Browning seems to 
say, "I wonder if the world is entirely right in this 
judgment: what would this individual say if given 
an opportunity for apologetic oratory?" Browning 
is the greatest master of special pleading in all liter- 
ature. Although he detested Count Guido, he makes 
him present his case in the best possible light, so 
that for the moment he arouses our intellectual 
sympathy. 

The Glove story is one of the best-known anec- 
dotes in history; besides its French source, it has 
been told in German by Schiller, in English by Leigh 
Hunt, and has received thousands of allusory com- 



POEMS OF PARADOX 247 

ments — but always from one point of view. The 
hooting and laughter that followed the Lady as she 
left the court, have been echoed in all lands. Brown- 
ing pondered over this story, and took the woman's 
part. This may be accounted for by two causes. He 
is the most chivalrous poet that ever lived, and 
would naturally defend the Lady. What De Lorge 
ought to have done when he brought the glove back 
was to remind the Lady that she had another, and 
permit him the honor of retrieving that. But 
Browning saw also in this incident a true paradox — 
the Lady was right after all ! Right in throwing the 
glove, right in her forecast of the event. 

Like a good lawyer, he first proves that the 
Knight's achievement was slight. In the pit the 
Lion was not at that moment dangerous, because he 
was desperately homesick. He was lost in thoughts 
of his wild home, in imagination driving the flocks 
up the mountain, and took not the slightest notice of 
the glove. Then a page had leaped into the pit sim- 
ply to recover his hat ; and he had done that because 
he could not afford to buy a new one. No one ap- 
plauded him. Think of the man who had originally 
caught the lion ! He went out alone and trapped a 
lion, simply that his rude boys might be amused at 
the spectacle. In our degenerate days, we give our 



248 BROWNING 

children a Teddy Bear. But in those strenuous 
times, the father said to his boys, "Come out into 
the back yard, and see the present I've got for you !" 
They came eagerly, and found a live lion. That man 
and his children were a hardy family. How they 
would have laughed at De Lorge's so-called heroism ! 

But the real truth of the matter is that De Lorge 
was a liar. The Lady suspected it all the time, and 
was saddened to have her judgment confirmed by 
the result. De Lorge had been boasting of his love, 
and of his eagerness to prove it. He had begged the 
Lady to test him — he would gladly die for her. Now 
it is important that a woman should know before 
marriage rather than after whether a lover's protes- 
tations are genuine or not — in short whether he is 
sincere and reliable, or whether he is a liar. The 
reason why men lie to women and not to men is be- 
cause they know that a lie to a woman can not be 
avenged, they can not be made to pay any penalty ; 
but when they lie to other men — in business affairs, 
for example — the penalty is severe. 

How could the Lady satisfy her mind? How 
could she know whether De Lorge was sincere or 
not? There was no war, there was no tournament, 
there was no quest. Suddenly one method presented 
itself. She tossed her glove into the pit. He had to 



POEMS OF PARADOX 249 

go— he could never have held up his head otherwise. 
But when he returned, he dashed the glove in the 
Lady's face, ostensibly to teach her that a brave 
man's life should not be risked by a woman's vanity. 
This was even a better gallery-play than the recovery 
of the glove, and succeeded splendidly. But the 
Lady turned sadly away. 

The blow a glove gives is but weak : 
Does the mark yet discolour my cheek? 
But when the heart suffers a blow, 
Will the pain pass so soon, do you know? 

What was the pain in her heart? Her woimded 
vanity, her anguish at the Court's ostracism? Not 
in the least. It was her pain at finding her opinion 
of De Lorge justified. He was then, just as she 
thought, a liar; he never meant to be taken at his 
word. All his protestations of love and service were 
mere phrases. His anger at the first test of his 
boasting proves this. The pain in her heart is the 
pain we all feel at reading of some cowardly or dis- 
loyal act; one more man unfaithful, one more man 
selfish, one more who lowers the level of human 
nature. 

The paradox teaches us the very simple lesson that 
if we boast of our prowess, we must not be angry 
when some one insists that we prove it. 



250 BROWNING 

THE GLOVE 

1845 

(peter ronsard loquitur) 

**Heigho !" yawned one day King Francis, 
"Distance all value enhances 1 
"When a man's busy, why, leisure 
"Strikes him as wonderful pleasure : 
"'Faith, and at leisure once is he? 
"Straightway he wants to be busy. 
"Here we've got peace ; and aghast I'm 
"Caught thinking war the true pastime. 
"Is there a reason in metre ? 
"Give us your speech, master Peter !" 
I who, if mortal dare say so, 
Ne'er am at loss with my Naso, 
"Sire," I replied, "joys prove cloudlets: 
"Men are the merest Ixions" — 
Here the King whistled aloud, "Let's 
" — Heigho — go look at our lions 1" 
Such are the sorrowful chances 
If you talk fine to King Francis. 

And so, to the courtyard proceeding, 

Our company, Francis was leading, 

Increased by new followers tenfold 

Before he arrived at the penfold ; 

Lords, ladies, like clouds which bedizen 

At sunset the western horizon. 

And Sir De Lorge pressed 'mid the foremost 

With the dame he professed to adore most 

Oh, what a face ! One by fits eyed 

Her, and the horrible pitside ; 

For the penfold surrounded a hollow 

Which led where the eye scarce dared follow, 



POEMS OF PARADOX 251 

And shelved to the chamber secluded 

Where Bluebeard, the great lion, brooded. 

The King hailed his keeper, an Arab 

As glossy and black as a scarab, 

And bade him make sport and at once stir 

Up and out of his den the old monster. 

They opened a hole in the wire-work 

Across it, and dropped there a firework, 

And fled : one's heart's beating redoubled ; 

A pause, while the pit's mouth was troubled, 

The blackness and silence so utter, 

By the firework's slow sparkling and sputter ; 

Then earth in a sudden contortion 

Gave out to our gaze her abortion. 

Such a brute ! Were I friend Clement Marot 

(Whose experience of nature's but narrow, . 

And whose faculties move in no small mist 

When he versifies David the Psalmist) 

I should study that brute to describe you 

I limn Juda Leonem de Tribu. 

One's whole blood grew curdling and creepy 

To see the black mane, vast and heapy. 

The tail in the air stiff and straining, 

The wide eyes, nor waxing nor waning, 

As over the barrier which bounded 

His platform, and us who surrounded 

The barrier, they reached and they rested 

On space that might stand him in best stead : 

For who knew, he thought, what the amazement, 

The eruption of clatter and blaze meant, 

And if, in this minute of wonder, 

No outlet, 'mid lightning and thunder. 

Lay broad, and, his shackles all shivered. 

The lion at last was delivered? 

Ay, that was the open sky o'erhead I 



252 BROWNING 

And you saw by the flash on his forehead, 

By the hope in those eyes wide and steady, 

He was leagues in the desert already, 

Driving the flocks up the mountain. 

Or catlike couched hard by the fountain 

To waylay the date-gathering negress : 

So guarded he entrance or egress. 

"How he stands !" quoth the King : "we may well 

swear, 
("No novice, we've won our spurs elsewhere 
"And so can afford the confession,) 
"We exercise wholesome discretion 
"In keeping aloof from his threshold ; 
"Once hold you, those jaws want no fresh hold, 
"Their first would too pleasantly purloin 
"The visitor's brisket or surloin : 
"But who's he would prove so fool-hardy? 
"Not the best man of Marignan, pardie !" 

The sentence no sooner was uttered. 
Than over the rails a glove fluttered. 
Fell close to the lion, and rested : 
The dame 'twas, who flung it and jested 
With life so, De Lorge had been wooing 
For months past ; he sat there pursuing 
His suit, weighing out with nonchalance 
Fine speeches like gold from a balance. 

Sound the trumpet, no true knight's a tarrier I 
De Lorge made one leap at the barrier, 
Walked straight to the glove, — while the lion 
Ne'er moved, kept his far-reaching eye on 
The palm-tree-edged desert-spring's sapphire, 
And the musky oiled skin of the Kaffir, — 
Picked it up, and as calmly retreated, 



POEMS OF PARADOX 253 

Leaped back where the lady was seated, 
And full in the face of its owner 
Flung the glove. 

"Your heart's queen, you dethrone her ? 
"So should I !" — cried the King — " 'twas mere vanity, 
"Not love, set that task to humanity I" 
Lords and ladies alike turned with loathing 
From such a proved wolf in sheep's clothing. 

Not so, I ; for I caught an expression 

In her brow's undisturbed self-possession 

Amid the Court's scoffing and merriment,— ' 

As if from no pleasing experiment 

She rose, yet of pain not much heedful 

So long as the process was needful, — 

As if she had tried in a crucible, 

To what "speeches like gold" were reducible, 

And, finding the finest prove copper, 

Felt the smoke in her face was but proper ; 

To know what she had not to trust to, 

Was worth all the ashes and dust too. 

She went out 'mid hooting and laughter ; 

Clement Marot stayed; I followed after, 

And asked, as a grace, what it all meant? 

If she wished not the rash deed's recalment? 

"For I" — so I spoke — "am a poet : 

"Human nature, — ^behoves that I know it 1" 

She told me, "Too long had I heard 

"Of the deed proved alone by the word : 

"For my love — what De Lorge would not dare ! 

"With my scorn — what De Lorge could compare I 

"And the endless descriptions of death 

"He would brave when my lip formed a breath. 



254 BROWNING 

"I must reckon as braved, or, of course, 

"Doubt his word — and moreover, perforce, 

"For such gifts as no lady could spurn, 

"Must offer my love in return. 

"When I looked on your lion, it brought 

"All the dangers at once to my thought, 

"Encountered by all sorts of men, 

"Before he was lodged in his den, — 

"From the poor slave whose club or bare hands 

"Dug the trap, set the snare on the sands, 

"With no King and no Court to applaud, 

"By no shame, should he shrink, overawed, 

"Yet to capture the creature made shift, 

"That his rude boys might laugh at the gift, 

" — To the page who last leaped o'er the fence 

"Of the pit, on no greater pretence 

"Than to get back the bonnet he dropped, 

"Lest his pay for a week should be stopped. 

"So, wiser I judged it to make 

"One trial what 'death for my sake* 

"Really meant, while the power was yet mine, 

"Than to wait until time should define 

"Such a phrase not so simply as I, 

"Who took it to mean just 'to die.* 

"The blow a glove gives is but weak : 

"Does the mark yet discolour my cheek? 

"But when the heart suffers a blow, 

"Will the pain pass so soon, do you know?" 

I looked, as away she was sweeping. 

And saw a youth eagerly keeping 

As close as he dared to the doorway. 

No doubt that a noble should more weigh 

His life than befits a plebeian; 

And yet, had our brute been Nemean — 



POEMS OF PARADOX 255 

(I judge by a certain calm fervour 

The youth stepped with, forward to serve her) 

; — He'd have scarce thought you did him the worst turn 

If you whispered "Friend, what you'd get, first earn I" 

And when, shortly after, she carried 

Her shame from the Court, and they married, 

To that marriage some happiness, maugre 

The voice of the Court, I dared augur. 

For De Lorge, he made women with men vie, 

Those in wonder and praise, these in envy ; 

And in short stood so plain a head taller 

That he wooed and won . . . how do you call her? 

The beauty, that rose in the sequel 

To the King's love, who loved her a week well. 

And 'twas noticed he never would honour 

De Lorge (who looked daggers upon her) 

With the easy commission of stretching 

His legs in the service, and fetching 

His wife, from her chamber, those straying 

Sad gloves she was always mislaying, 

While the King took the closet to chat In, — 

But of course this adventure came pat in. 

And never the King told the story, 

How bringing a glove brought such glory, 

But the wife smiled — "His nerves are grown firmer : 

"Mine he brings now and utters no murmur." 

Venienti occurrite morho! 

With which moral I drop my theorbo. 

Browning wrote two poems on pedantry; the 
former, in Garden Fancies, takes the conventional 
view. How can a man with any blood in him pore 
over miserable books, when life is so sweet? The 



256 BROWNING 

other, A Grammarian's Funeral^ is the apotheosis of 
the scholar. The paradox here is that Browning has 
made a hero out of what seems at first blush impos- 
sible material. It is easy to make a hero out of a 
noble character ; it is equally easy to make a hero out 
of a thorough scoundrel, a train-robber, or a mur- 
derer. Milton made a splendid hero out of the 
Devil. But a hero out of a nincompoop? A hero 
out of a dull, sexless pedant? 

But this is exactly what Browning has done, na}^ 
he has made this grammarian exactly the same kind 
of hero as a dashing cavalry officer leading a forlorn 
hope. 

Observe that Browning has purposely made his 
task as difficult as possible. Had the scholar been a 
great discoverer in science, a great master in philo- 
sophical thought, a great interpreter in literature — 
then we might all take off our hats : but this hero 
was a grammarian. He spent his life not on Greek 
drama or Greek philosophy, but on Greek Grammar. 
He is dead : his pupils carry his body up the moun- 
tain, as the native disciples of Stevenson carried 
their beloved Tusitala to the summit of the island 
peak. These students are not weeping; they sing 
and shout as they march, for they are carrying their 
idol on their shoulders. His life and his death were 



POEMS OF PARADOX 257, 

magnificent, an inspiration to all humanity. Hurrah ! 
Hurrah ! 

The swinging movement of the young men is in 
exact accord with the splendid advance of the 
thought. They tell us the history of their Teacher 
from his youth to his last breath : 

This is our master, famous calm and dead, 
Borne on our shoulders. 

It is a common error to suppose that missionaries, 
nuns, and scholars follow their chosen callings be- 
cause they are unfit for anything else. The judg- 
ment of the wise world is not always correct. It as- 
sumes that these strange folk never hear the call of 
the blood. When John C. Calhoun was a student at 
Yale, his comrades, returning at midnight from a 
wild time, found him at his books. "Why don't you 
come out, John, and be a man? You'll never be 
young again." *T regard my work as more impor- 
tant," said John quietly. Milton's bitter cry 

Were it not better done, as others use, 
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, 
Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair ? 

shows that it was not the absence of temptation, but 
a tremendously powerful will, that kept him at his 
desk. When a spineless milksop becomes a mission- 



258 BROWNING 

ary, when a gawk sticks to his books, when an ugly 
woman becomes a nun, the world makes no objec- 
tion ; but when a socially prominent man goes in for 
missions or scholarship, when a lovely girl takes the 
veil, the wise world says, "Ah, what a pity !" 

Browning's Grammarian did not take up scholar- 
ship as a last resort. He could have done anything 
he liked. 

He was a man born with thy face and throat, 
Lyric Apollo ! 

He might have been an athlete, a social leader, a 
man of pleasure. He chose Greek Grammar. In 
the pursuit of this prize, he squandered his time and 
youth and health as recklessly as men squander these 
treasures on wine and women. When a young man 
throws away his youth and health in gambling, 
drink, and debauchery, the world expresses no sur- 
prise; he is known as a "splendid fellow," and is 
often much admired. But when a man spends all his 
gifts in scholarship, scientific discovery, or altruistic 
aims, he is regarded as an eccentric, lacking both 
blood and judgment. 

I say that Browning has given his Grammarian 
not only courage and heroism, but the reckless, dash- 
ing, magnificent bravery of a cavalry leader. In the 
march for learning, this man lost his youth and 



POEMS OF PARADOX 259 

health, and acquired painful diseases. Finally he 
comes to the end. When an officer in battle falls, 
and his friends bend over him to catch his last 
breath, he does not say, "I commend my soul to 
God," or "Give my love to my wife," — he says, ''Did 
we win?'* and we applaud this passion in the last 
agony. So our Grammarian, full of diseases, para- 
lysed from the waist down, the death rattle in his; 
throat — what does he say to the faithful watchers? 
What are his last words ? He dictates Greek Gram- 
mar, 

The solitary student may be a paragon of courage, 
headstrong, reckless, tenacious as a bulldog, with a 
resolution entirely beyond the range of the children 
of this world. 

SIBRANDUS SCHAFNABURGENSIS 
1844 

Plague take all your pedants, say 1 1 

He who wrote what I hold in my hand, 
Centuries back was so good as to die, 

Leaving this rubbish to cumber the land ; 
This, that was a book in its time. 

Printed on paper and bound in leather, 
Last month in the white of a matin-prime, 

Just when the birds sang all together. 

Into the garden I brought it to read, 
And imder the arbute and laurustine 



260 BROWNING 

Read it, so help me grace In my need, 

From title-page to closing line. 
Chapter on chapter did I count, 

As a curious traveller counts Stonehenge ; 
Added up the mortal amount ; 

And then proceeded to my revenge. 

Vender's a plum-tree with a crevice 

An owl would build in, were he but sage ; 
For a lap of moss, like a fine pont-levis 

In a castle of the Middle Age, 
Joins to a lip of gum, pure amber ; 

When he'd be private, there might he spend 
Hours alone In his lady's chamber : 

Into this crevice I dropped our friend. 

Splash, went he, as under he ducked, 

— At the bottom, I knew, rain-drippings stagnate ; 
Next, a handful of blossoms I plucked 

To bury him with, my bookshelf's magnate; 
Then I went in-doors, brought out a loaf, 

Half a cheese, and a bottle of Chablis ; 
Lay on the grass and forgot the oaf 

Over a jolly chapter of Rabelais. 

Now, this morning, betwixt the moss 

And gum that locked our friend In limbo, 
A spider had spun his web across. 

And sat in the midst with arms akimbo : 
So, I took pity, for learning's sake, 

And, de profundis, accentibus Icetis, 
Cantate! quoth I, as I got a rake; 

And up I fished his delectable treatise. 

Here you have It, dry in the sun. 
With all the binding all of a blister, 



POEMS OF PARADOX 261 

And great blue spots where the ink has run, 
And reddish streaks that wink and glister 

O'er the page so beautifully yellow : 
Oh, well have the droppings played their tricks ! 

Did he guess how toadstools grow, this fellow? 
Here's one stuck in his chapter six 1 

How did he like it when the live creatures 

Tickled and toused and browsed him all over. 
And worm, slug, eft, with serious features, 

Came in, each one, for his right of trover ? 
•—When the water-beetle with great blind deaf face 

Made of her eggs the stately deposit. 
And the newt borrowed just so much of the preface 

As tiled in the top of his black wife's closet? 

All that life and fun and romping. 

All that frisking and twisting and coupling. 
While slowly our poor friend's leaves were swamping 

And clasps were cracking and covers suppling ! 
As if you had carried sour John Knox 

To the play-house at Paris, Vienna or Munich, 
Fastened him into a front-row box, 

And danced off the ballet with trousers and tunic. 

Come, old martyr ! What, torment enough is it? 

Back to my room shall you take your sweet self. 
Good-bye, mother-beetle ; husband-eft, sufficit! 

See the snug niche I have made on my shelf ! 
A*s book shall prop you up, B's shall cover you. 

Here's C to be grave with, or D to be gay. 
And with E on each side, and F right over you» 

Dry-rot at ease till the Judgment-day 1 



262 BROWNING 

A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL 

SHORTLY AFTER THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING IN EUROPE 
1855 

Let us begin and carry up this corpse, 

Singing together. 
Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes 

Each in its tether 
Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain, 

Cared-f or till cock-crow : 
Look out if yonder be not day again 

Rimming the rock-row ! 
Thafs the appropriate country; there, man's thought. 

Rarer, intenser. 
Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought. 

Chafes in the censfer. 
Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop; 

Seek we sepulture 
On a tall mountain, citied to the top, 

Crowded with culture! 
All'the peaks soar, but one the rest excels; 

Clouds overcome it; 
No I yonder sparkle is the citadel's 

Circling its summit. 
Thither our path lies ; wind we up the heights : 

Wait ye the warning? 
Our low life was the level's and the night's; 

He's for the morning. 
Step to a tune, square chests, erect each head, 

'Ware the beholders ! 
This is our master, famous calm and dead. 

Borne on our shoulders. 

Sleep, crop and herd ! sleep, darkling thorpe and croft, 
Safe from the weather ! 



POEMS OF PARADOX 263 

He, whom we convoy to his grave aloft, 

Singing together, 
He was a man born with thy face and throat. 

Lyric Apollo ! 
Long he lived nameless : how should spring take note 

Winter would follow? 
Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone! 

Cramped and diminished, 
Moaned he, "New measures, other feet anon ! 

"My dance is finished?" 
No, that's the world's way: (keep the mountain-side. 

Make for the city!) 
He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride 

Over men's pity; 
Left play for work, and grappled with the world 

Bent on escaping : 
"What's in the scroll," quoth he, "thou keepest furled ? 

"Show me their shaping, 
*'TheIrs who most studied man, the bard and sage, — 

"Give !" — So, he gowned him, 
Straight got by heart that book to its last page : 

Learned, we found him. 
Yea, but we found him bald too, eyes like lead. 

Accents uncertain : 
"Time to taste life," another would have said, 

"Up with the curtain 1" 

This man said rather, "Actual life comes next? 

"Patience a moment! 
"Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text, 

"Still there's the comment. 
"Let me know all ! Prate not of most or least, 

"Painful or easy! 
**Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast, 

"Ay, nor feel queasy." 



264 BROWNING 

Oh, such a life as he resolved to live, 

When he had learned it, 
When he had gathered all books had to give I 

Sooner, he spurned it. 
Image the whole, then execute the parts — 

Fancy the fabric 
Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz, 

Ere mortar dab brick I 

(Here's the town-gate reached : there's the market-place 

Gaping before us.) 
Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace 

(Hearten our chorus!) 
That before living he'd learn how to live — • 

No end to learning: 
Earn the means first — God surely will contrive 

Use for our earning. 
Others mistrust and say, "But time escapes : 

"Live now or never I" 
He said, "What's time ? Leave Now for dogs and apes ! 

"Man has Forever." 
Back to his book then : deeper drooped his head : 

Calculus racked him : 
Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead : 

Tussis attacked him. 
"Now, master, take a little rest 1" — not he I 

(Caution redoubled, 
Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly!) 

Not a whit troubled 
Back to his studies, fresher than at first. 

Fierce as a dragon 
He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst) 

Sucked at the flagon. 
Oh, if we draw a circle premature, 

Heedless of far gain, 



POEMS OF PARADOX 265 

Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure 

Bad is our bargain ! 
Was it not great? did not he throw on God, 

(He loves the burthen) — 
God's task to make the heavenly period 

Perfect the earthen? 
Did not he magnify the mind, show clear 

Just what it all meant? 
He would not discount life, as fools do here. 

Paid by instalment. 
He ventured neck or nothing — heaven's success 

Found, or earth's failure: 
"Wilt thou trust death or not ?" He answered "Yes : 

"Hence with life's pale lure 1" 
That low man seeks a little thing to do. 

Sees it and does it : 
This high man, with a great thing to pursue, 

Dies ere he knows it. 
That low man goes on adding one to one, 

His hundred's soon hit: 
This high man, aiming at a million. 

Misses an unit. 
That, has the world here — should he need the next. 

Let the world mind him I 
This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed 

Seeking shall find him. 
So, with the throttling hands of death at strife, 

Ground he at grammar ; 
Still, thro* the rattle, parts of speech were rife: 

While he could stammer 
He settled Hoti's business — let it be! — 

Properly based Oun — 
Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De, 

Dead from the waist down. 



266 BROWNING 

Well, here's the platform, here's the proper placed 

Hail to your purlieus, 
All ye highfliers of the feathered race, 

Swallows and curlews! 
Here's the top-peak; the multitude below 

Live, for they can, there : 
This man decided not to Live but Know — 

Bury this man there? 
Here — ^here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds 
form. 

Lightnings are loosened, 
Stars come and go I Let joy break with the storm, 

Peace let the dew send ! 
Lofty designs must close in like effects : 

Loftily lying, 
Leave him — still loftier than the world suspects, 

Living and dying. 

In the amusing poem, Up at a Villa — Down in the 
City, Browning compares the beauty of city and 
country life from an unusual point of view. It is 
generally assumed that the country is more poetical 
than the city ; but it would be difficult to prove this, 
if we were put to the test. Natural scenery is now 
much admired, and mountains are in the height of 
fashion; every one is forced to express raptures, 
whether one feels them or not. But this has not al- 
ways been the case. When Addison travelled to 
Italy, he regarded the Alps as disgusting; they were 
a disagreeable and dangerous barrier, that must be 
crossed before he could reach the object of his jour- 



POEMS OF PARADOX 26Z 

ney. He wrote home from Italy that he was de- 
lighted at the sight of a plain — a remark that would 
damn a modern pilgrim. The first man in English 
literature to bring out the real beauty of mountains 
was Thomas Gray. 

Very few people have a sincere and genuine love 
of the country — as is proved by the way they flock 
to the cities. We love the country for a change, for 
a rest, for its novelty : how many of us would be 
willing to live there the year around? We know 
that Wordsworth loved the country, for he chose to 
live among the lonely lakes when he could have lived 
in London. But most intelligent persons live in 
towns, and take to the country for change and recre- 
ation. 

The speaker in Browning's poem is an absolutely 
honest Philistine, who does not know that every 
word he says spells artistic damnation. He is dis- 
gusted with the situation of his house : 

.... stuck like the horn of a bull 
Just on a mountain-edge as bare as the creature's skull. 

In other words the site is so magnificent that to-day 
expensive hotels are built there, and people come 
from all over the world to enjoy the view. In fact 
it is just this situation which Browning admires in 
the poem De Gustibus, 



268 BROWNING 

What I love best in all the world 

Is a castle, precipice-encurled, 

In a gash of the wind-grieved Apennine. 

But our man does not know what he ought to say ; 
he says simply what he really thinks. The views of 
a sincere PhiHstine on natural scenery, works of art, 
pieces of music, are interesting because they are sin- 
cere. The conventional admiration may or may not 
be genuine. 

This man says the city is much cooler in summer 
than the country : that spring visits the city earlier : 
that what we call the monotonous row of houses in 
a city street is far more beautiful than the irregu- 
larity of the country. It appeals to his sense of 
beauty. 

Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry. 

But his real rapture over the city is because city 
life is interesting. There is something going on 
every moment of the blessed day. It is a perpet- 
ual theatre, admission free. This is undoubtedly 
the real reason why the poor prefer crowded, squalid 
city tenements to the space, fresh air and hygienic 
advantages of the country. Many well-meaning folk 
wonder why men with their families remain in city 
slums, when they could easily secure work on farms, 
where there would be abundance of fresh air, whole- 



POEMS OF PARADOX 269 

some food, and cool nights for sleep. Our Italian 
gives the correct answer. People can not stand dull- 
ness and loneliness : they crave excitement, and this 
is supplied day and night by the city street. Indeed 
in some cases, where by the Fresh Air Fund, chil- 
dren are taken for a vacation to the country, they be- 
come homesick for the slums. 

UP AT A VILLA— DOWN IN THE CITY 

(as distinguished by an ITALIAN PERSON OF QUALITY) 

1855 

I 

Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare, 

The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city-square; 

Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window there ! 

II 

Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at least ! 
There, the whole day long, one's life is a perfect feast; 
While up at a villa one lives, I maintain it, no more than a 
beast. 

Ill 

Well now, look at our villa ! stuck like the horn of a bull 
Just on a mountain-edge as bare as the creature's skull, 
Save a mere shag of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull ! 
— I scratch my own, sometimes, to see if the hair's turned 
wool. 

IV 

But the city, oh the city — the square with the houses ! Why ? 
They are stone-faced, white as a curd, there's something to 
take the eye! 



270 BROWNING 

Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry ; 

You watch who crosses and gossips, who saunters, who hur- 
ries by ; 

Green bHnds, as a matter of course, to draw when the sun 
gets high; 

And the shops with fanciful signs which are painted properly. 



What of a villa? Though winter be over in March by rights, 
'Tis May perhaps ere the snow shall have withered well off 

the heights : 
You've the brown ploughed land before, where the oxen steam 

and wheeze. 
And the hills over-smoked behind by the faint grey olive-trees. 

VI 

Is it better in May, I ask you ? You've summer all at once ; 
In a day he leaps complete with a few strong April suns. 
'Mid the sharp short emerald wheat, scarce risen three fingers 

well, 
The wild tulip, at end of its tube, blows out its great red bell 
Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to pick and 

sell. 

VII 

Is it ever hot in the square? There's a fountain to spout and 
splash ! 

In the shade it sings and springs; in the shine such foam- 
bows flash 

On the horses with curling fish-tails, that prance and paddle 
and pash 

Round the lady atop in her conch — fifty gazers do not abash, 

Though all that she wears is some weeds round her waist in 
a sort of sash. 



POEMS OF PARADOX 271 

VIII 

All the year long at the villa, nothing to see though you linger, 

Except yon cypress that points like death's lean lifted fore- 
finger. 

Some think fireflies pretty, when they mix i' the corn and 
mingle, 

Or thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it seem a-tingle. 

Late August or early September, the stunning cicala is shrill, 

And the bees keep their tiresome whine round the resinous 
firs on the hill. 

Enough of the seasons, — I spare you the months of the fever 
and chilL 

IX 

Ere you open your eyes in the city, the blessed church-bells 

begin : 
No sooner the bells leave oflF than the diligence rattles in : 
You get the pick of the news, and it costs you never a pin. 
By-and-by there's the travelling doctor gives pills, lets blood, 

draws teeth; 
Or the Pulcinello-trumpet breaks up the market beneath. 
At the post-office such a scene-picture — the new play, piping 

hot I 
And a notice how, only this morning, three liberal thieves 

were shot. 
Above it, behold the Archbishop's most fatherly of rebukes. 
And beneath, with his crown and his lion, some little new law 

of the Duke's ! 
Or a sonnet with flowery marge, to the Reverend Don So-and- 
so 
Who is Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, Saint Jerome and Cicero, 
"And moreover," (the sonnet goes rhyming,) "the skirts of 

Saint Paul has reached, 
"Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more unctuous 

than ever he preached." 



272 BROWNING 

Noon strikes, — here sweeps the procession! our Lady borne 

smiHng and smart 
With a pink gauze gown all spangles, and seven swords stuck 

in her heart ! 
Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife; 
No keeping one's haunches still: it's the greatest pleasure in 

life. 

X 

But bless you, it's dear — it's dear ! fowls, wine, at double the 

rate. 
They have clapped a new tax upon salt, and what oil pays 

passing the gate 
It's a horror to think of. And so, the villa for me, not the 

cityl 
Beggars can scarcely be choosers : but still — ah, the pity, the 

pity 1 
Look, two and two go the priests, then the monks with cowls 

and sandals. 
And the penitents dressed in white shirts, a-holding the yellow 

candles ; 
One, he carries a flag up straight, and another a cross with 

handles. 
And the Duke's guard brings up the rear, for the better pre- 
vention of scandals : 
Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife. 
Oh, a day in the city-square, there is no such pleasure in life ! 

No poem of Browning's has given more trouble to 
his whole-souled admirers than The Statue and the 
Bust: and yet, if this is taken as a paradox, its mean- 
ing is abundantly clear. 

The square spoken of in the poem is the Piazza 
Annunziata in Florence : in the midst of the square 



POEMS OF PARADOX 27Z 

stands the equestrian statue of the Duke : and if one 
follows the direction of the bronze eyes of the man, 
it will appear that they rest steadfastly on the right 
hand window in the upper storey of the palace. This 
is the farthest window facing the East. There is no 
bust there ; but it is in this window that the lady sat 
and regarded the daily passage of the Duke. 

The reason why this poem has troubled the minds 
of many good people is because it seems (on a very 
superficial view) to sympathise with unlawful love; 
even in certain circumstances to recommend the pur- 
suit of it to fruition. Let us see what the facts are. 
Before the Duke saw the bride, he was, as Browning 
says, empty and fine like a swordless sheath. This is 
a good description of many young men. They are 
like an empty sheath. The sheath may be beautiful, 
it may be exquisitely and appropriately enchased; 
but a sheath is no good without a sword. So, many 
young men are attractive and accomplished, their 
minds are cultivated by books and travel, but they 
have no driving purpose in life, no energy directed 
to one aim, no end ; and therefore all their attractive- 
ness is without positive value. They are empty like 
a handsome sheath minus the sword. 

The moment the Duke saw the lady a great pur- 
pose filled his life : he became temporarily a resolute, 



274 BROWNING 

ambitious man, with capacity for usefulness. No 
moral scruple kept the lovers apart; and they de- 
termined to fly. This purpose was frustrated by pro- 
crastination, trivial hindrances, irresolution, till it 
was forever too late. Now the statue and the bust 
gaze at each other in eternal ironical mockery, for 
these lovers in life might as well have been made of 
bronze and stone ; they never really lived. 

Contrary to his usual custom — it is only very sel- 
dom as in this poem and in Bishop Blougram's 
Apology, and in both cases because he knew he 
would otherwise be misunderstood — Browning 
added a personal postscript. Where are these lovers 
now ? How do they spend their time in the spiritual 
world ? I do not know where they are, says Brown- 
ing, but I know very well where they are not: they are 
not with God. No, replies the reader, because they 
wanted to commit adultery. Ah, says Browning, 
they are not exiled from God because they wanted to 
commit adultery: they are exiled because they did 
not actually do it. This is the paradox. 

Browning takes a crime to test character; for a 
crime can test character as well as a virtue. We 
must draw a clear distinction here between society 
and the individual. It is a good thing for society 
that people are restrained from crime by what are 



POEMS OF PARADOX 275 

really bad motives — fear, presence of police, irreso- 
lution, love of ease, selfishness : furthermore, society 
and the law do not consider men's motives, but only 
their actual deeds. A white-souled girl and a black- 
hearted villain with no criminal record are exactly 
equal in the eyes of the law, both perfectly innocent. 
But from the point of view of the individual, or as 
a Christian would say, in the sight of God, it is the 
heart that makes all the difference between virtue 
and depravity. In the case of our lovers delay was 
best for society, but bad for them: the purposed 
crime was a test of their characters, and they added 
the sin of cowardice to the sin of adultery, which 
they had already committed in their hearts. Sup- 
pose four men agree to hold up a train. When the 
light of the locomotive appears, three lose their cour- 
age: the fourth stops the train, and single-handed 
takes the money from the express-car and from the 
passengers, killing the conductor and the express- 
messenger. After the train has been sent on its way, 
the three timid ones divide up with the man who ac- 
tually committed the crimes. Who is the most vir- 
tuous among the four ? Which has the best chance 
to be with God ? Manifestly the brave one, although 
he is a robber and a murderer. From the point of 
view; of the people who owned the money, from the 



276 BROWNING 

point of view of the families of the dead men, it 
would have been better if all four of the would-be 
robbers had been cowards: but for that criminars 
individual soul, he was better than his mates, because 
the crime tested his character and found him sound : 
he did not add the sin of cowardice to the sins of 
robbery and murder. 

Browning changes the figure. If you choose to 
play a game — no one is obliged to play, but if you do 
choose to play — then play with all your energy, 
whether the stakes are money or worthless counters. 
Now our lovers chose to play. The stake they 
played for was not the true coin of marriage, but the 
false counter of adultery. Still, the game was a real 
test of their characters, and it proved them lacking 
in every true quality that makes men and women 
noble and useful. 

Even now Browning knew that some readers 
would not understand him : so he added the last two 
lines, which ought to make his lesson clear. You 
virtuous people (I see by your expression you disap- 
prove and are ready to quarrel with me) how strive 
you? De te, fahula! My whole story concerns you. 
You say that the lovers should have remained virtu- 
ous : you say that virtue should be the great aim of 
life. Very well, do you act as if you believed what 



^ POEMS OF PARADOX 277. 

you say? Is virtue the greatest thing in your life? 
Do you strive to the uttermost toward that goal ? Do 
you really prefer virtue to your own ease, comfort 
and happiness ? 

I find Browning's poem both clear and morally 
stimulating. My one objection would be that he puts 
rather too much value on mere energy. I do not be- 
lieve that the greatest thing in life is striving, strug- 
gle, and force: there are deep, quiet souls who ac- 
complish much in this world without being especially 
strenuous. But in the sphere of virtue Browning 
.was essentially a fighting man. 

THE STATUE AND THE BUST 

1855 

There's a palace in Florence, the world knows well, 
And a statue watches it from the square, 
And this story of both do our townsmen tell. 

Ages ago, a lady there, 

At the farthest window facing the East 

Asked, '*Who rides by with the royal air ?" 

The bridesmaids* prattle around her ceased ; 

She leaned forth, one on either hand ; 

They saw how the blush of the bride increased — 

They felt by its beats her heart expand — 
As one at each ear and both in a breath 
Whispered, "The Great-Duke Ferdinand." 



278 BROWNING 

The selfsame instant, underneath, 
The Duke rode past in his idle way, 
Empty and fine like a s wordless sheath. 

Gay he rode, with a friend as gay. 

Till he threw his head back — "Who is she?'* 

— ^"A bride the Riccardi brings home to-day." 

Hair in heaps lay heavily 

Over a pale brow spirit-pure — ■. 

Carved like the heart of the coal-black tree, 

Crisped like a war-steed's encolure — 
And vainly sought to dissemble her eyes 
Of the blackest black our eyes endure, 

And lo, a blade for a knight's emprise 
Filled the fine empty sheath of a man, — 
The Duke grew straightway brave and wise. 

He looked at her, as a lover can ; 

She looked at him, as one who awakes : 

The past was a sleep, and her life began. 

Now, love so ordered for both their sakes, 

A feast was held that selfsame night 

In the pile which the mighty shadow makes. 

(For Via Larga is three-parts light, 

But the palace overshadows one, 

Because of a crime, which may God requite I 

To Florence and God the wrong was done, 
Through the first republic's murder there 
By Cosimo and his cursed son.) 

The Duke (with the statue's face in the square) 
Turned in the midst of his multitude 
At the bright approach of the bridal pair. 



POEMS OF PARADOX 279 

Face to face the lovers stood 

A single minute and no more, 

While the bridegroom bent as a man subdued — 

Bowed till his bonnet brushed the floor— 
For the Duke on the lady a kiss conferred, 
As the courtly custom was of yore. 

In a minute can lovers exchange a word? 
If a word did pass, which I do not think, 
Only one out of a thousand heard. 

That was the bridegroom. At day's brink 
He and his bride were alone at last 
In a bed chamber by a taper's blink. 

Calmly he said that her lot was cast, 

That the door she had passed was shut on her 

Till the final catafalk repassed. 

The world meanwhile, its noise and stir, 
Through a certain window facing the East 
She could watch like a convent's chronicler. 

Since passing the door might lead to a feast. 
And a feast might lead to so much beside, 
He, of many evils, chose the least. 

"Freely I choose too," said the bride — 
"Your window and its world suffice," 
Replied the tongue, while the heart replied — 

"If I spend the night with that devil twice. 
May his window serve as my loop of hell 
Whence a damned soul looks on paradise 1 

"I fly to the Duke who loves me well. 
Sit by his side and laugh at sorrow 
Ere I count another ave-bell. 



280 BROWNING 

** 'TIs only the coat of a page to borrow, 
And tie my hair in a horse-boy's trim. 
And I save my soul — but not to-morrow"— 

(She checked herself and her eye grew dim) 
"My father tarries to bless my state : 
I must keep it one day more for hin:. 

"Is one day more so long to wait? 
Moreover the Duke rides past, I know ; 
We shall see each other, sure as fate." 

She turned on her side and slept. Just so I 
So we resolve on a thing and sleep : 
So did the lady, ages ago. 

That night the Duke said, "Dear or cheap 
As the cost of this cup of bliss may prove 
To body or soul, I will drain it deep." 

And on the morrow, bold with love, 

He beckoned the bridegroom (close on call. 

As his duty bade, by the Duke's alcove) 

And smiled " 'Twas a very funeral, 
Your lady will think, this feast of ours, — 
A shame to efface, whate'er befall I 

"What if we break from the Arno bowers, 

And try if Petraja, cool and green, 

Cure last night's fault with this morning's flowers ?* 

The bridegroom, not a thought to be seen 
On his steady brow and quiet mouth, 
Said, "Too much favor for me so mean ! 

"But, alas 1 my lady leaves the South ; 
Each wind that comes from the Apennine 
Is a menace to her tender youth : 



POEMS OF PARADOX 281 

"Nor a way exists, the wise opine, 
If she quits her palace twice this year. 
To avert the flower of life's decline." 

Quoth the Duke, "A sage and a kindly fear. 
Moreover Petraja is cold this spring: 
Be our feast to-night as usual here !" 

And then to himself — "Which night shall bring 
Thy bride to her lover's embraces, fool — 
Or I am the fool, and thou art the king ! 

"Yet my passion must wait a night, nor cool— » 
For to-night the Envoy arrives from France 
Whose heart I unlock with thyself, my tool. 

"I need thee still and might miss perchance 

To-day is not wholly lost, beside. 

With its hope of my lady's countenance : 

"For I ride — what should I do but ride ? 

And passing her palace, if I list, 

May glance at its window — well betide !" 

So said, so done : nor the lady missed 
One ray that broke from the ardent brow, 
Nor a curl of the lips where the spirit kissed. 

Be sure that each renewed the vow. 
No morrow's sun should arise and set 
And leave them then as it left them now. 

But next day passed, and next day yet. 
With still fresh cause to wait one day more 
Ere each leaped over the parapet. 

And still, as love's brief morning wore. 
With a gentle start, half smile, half sigh, 
They found love not as it seemed before. 



282 BROWNING 

They thought it would work infallibly, 

But not in despite of heaven and earth : 

The rose would blow when the storm passed by. 

Meantime they could profit in winter's dearth 
By store of fruits that supplant the rose : 
The world and its ways have a certain worth : 

And to press a point while these oppose 

Were simple policy ; better wait : 

We lose no friends and we gain no foes. 

Meantime, worse fates than a lover's fate, 
Who daily may ride and pass and look 
Where his lady watches behind the grate I 

And she — she watched the square like a book 
Holding one picture and only one, 
Which daily to find she undertook : 

When the picture was reached the book was done, 
And she turned from the picture at night to scheme 
Of tearing it out for herself next sun. 

So weeks grew months, years ; gleam by gleam 
The glory dropped from their youth and love. 
And both perceived they had dreamed a dream ; 

Which hovered as dreams do, still above: 
But who can take a dream for a truth ? 
Oh, hide our eyes from the next remove ! 

One day as the lady saw her youth 
Depart, and the silver thread that streaked 
Her hair, and, worn by the serpent's tooth. 

The brow so puckered, the chin so peaked, 
And wondered who the woman was. 
Hollow-eyed and haggard-cheeked, 



POEMS OF PARADOX 283 

Fronting her silent in the glass — 
"Summon here," she suddenly said, 
"Before the rest of my old self pass, 

"Him, the Carver, a hand to aid, 

Who fashions the clay no love will change, 

And fixes a beauty never to fade. 

"Let Robbia's craft so apt and strange 
Arrest the remains of young and fair. 
And rivet them while the seasons range. 

"Make me a face on the window there, 
Waiting as ever, mute the while. 
My love to pass below in the square I 

"And let me think that it may beguile 
Dreary days which the dead must spend 
Down in their darkness under the aisle, 

"To say, 'What matters it at the end? 
I did no more while my heart was warm 
Than does that image, my pale-faced friend/ 

"Where is the use of the lip's red charm, 
The heaven of hair, the pride of the brow, 
And the blood that blues the inside arm— 

"Unless we turn, as the soul knows how, 
The earthly gift to an end divine? 
A lady of clay is as good, I trow." 

But long ere Robbia's cornice, fine, 

With flowers and fruits which leaves enlace. 

Was set where now is the empty shrine — 

(And, leaning out of a bright blue space, 
As a ghost might lean from a chink of sky, 
The passionate pale lady's face — 



284 BROWNING 

Eying ever, with earnest eye 

And quick-turned neck at its breathless stretch, 

Some one who ever is passing by — ) 

The Duke had sighed like the simplest wretch 
In Florence, "Youth — my dream escapes ! 
Will its record stay?" And he bade them fetch 

Some subtle moulder of brazen shapes — 
"Can the soul, the will, die out of a man 
Ere his body find the grave that gapes ? 

"John of Douay shall effect my plan. 
Set me on horseback here aloft, 
Alive, as the crafty sculptor can, 

"In the very square I have crossed so oft: 
That men may admire, when future suns 
Shall touch the eyes to a purpose soft, 

"While the mouth and the brow stay brave in bronze — 
Admire and say, 'When he was alive 
How he would take his pleasure once V 

"And it shall go hard but I contrive 

To listen the while, and laugh in my tomb 

At idleness which aspires to strive." 



So ! While these wait the trump of doom, 
How do their spirits pass, I wonder, 
Nights and days in the narrow room? 

Still, I suppose, they sit and ponder 
What a gift life was, ages ago, 
Six steps out of the chapel yonder. 



POEMS OF PARADOX 285 

Only they see not God, I know, 

Nor all that chivalry of his, 

The soldier-saints who, row on row, 

Burn upward each to his point of bliss—! 

Since, the end of life being manifest. 

He had burned his way through the world to this. 

I hear you reproach, "But delay was best, 

For their end was a crime." — Oh, a crime will do 

As well, I reply, to serve for a test, 

As a virtue golden through and through, 

Sufficient to vindicate itself 

And prove its worth at a moment's view I 

Must a game be played for the sake of pelf? 
Where a button goes, 'twere an epigram 
To offer the stamp of the very Guelph. 

The true has no value beyond the sham : 

As well the counter as coin, I submit, 

When your table's a hat, and your prize, a dram. 

Stake your counter as boldly every whit. 

Venture as warily, use the same skill. 

Do your best, whether winning or losing it. 

If you choose to play! — is my principle. 
Let a man contend to the uttermost 
For his life's set prize, be it what it will I 

The counter our lovers staked was lost 

As surely as if it were lawful coin : 

And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost 

Is — the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin. 
Though the end in sight was a vice, I say. 
You of the virtue (we issue join) 
How strive you? De te, fabula! 



2^6 BROWNING 

The two volumes of Dramatic Idyls are full of 
paradoxes, for Browning became fonder and fonder 
of the paradox as he descended into the vale of 
years. The Russian poem Ivan Ivanovitch justly 
condemns mothers who prefer their own safety to 
that of their children. When a stranger gives up his 
life for another, as happens frequently in crises of 
fire and shipwTeck, we applaud : but when a mother 
sacrifices her life for that of her child, she does the 
natural and expected thing. The woman in this 
poem was a monster of wickedness and did not de- 
serve to live. She started with three children and 
arrived with none. Now there are some things in 
life for which no apology and no explanation suffice. 
What do we care about her story? Who cares to 
hear her defence? What difference does it make 
whether she actively threw out the children or al- 
lowed the wolves to take them? She arrives safe 
and sound without them and there is no mistaking 
the fact that she rejoices in her own salvation. She 
does not rejoice long, however, for Ivan, who is 
Browning's ideal of resolution, neatly removes her 
head. Practically and literally Ivan is a murderer : 
but paradoxically he is God's servant, for the woman 
is not fit to live, and he eliminates her. 

From the practical point of view there is a diffi- 



POEMS OF PARADOX 287 

culty ahead. The husband is due; when he hears 
that the children are lost, he will suffer horribly, and 
will enquire anxiously as to the fate of his wife. 
When he learns that she arrived in good condition 
and that then Ivan knocked her head off, he may not 
fully appreciate the ethical beauty of Ivan's deed. 
But this detail does not affect the moral significance 
of the story. Yet I can not help thinking that a man 
with such strong convictions as Ivan ought not to 
carry an axe. 

Ivan, however, is still needed in Russia. Two or 
three years ago, immediately after a wedding cere- 
mony, the bride and groom, with the whole w^edding 
party, set out in sledges for the next town. The 
wolves attacked them and ate every member of the 
party except the four in the first sledge — husband, 
wife, and two men. As the wolves drew near, these 
two heroes advised the husband to throw out the 
bride, for if he did so, the three left might be saved, 
as their haven was almost in sight. Naturally the 
bridegroom declined. Then the two men threw out 
both bride and groom, and just managed to reach 
the town in safety, the sole survivors of the whole 
party. I wish that Ivan had been there to give them 
the proper welcome. 

The poem Clive is a psychological analysis of 



288 BROWNING 

courage and fear, two of the most interesting of 
human sensations. Clive seems to have been an in- 
strument in the hands of Destiny. When an obscure 
young man, he twice tried to commit suicide, and 
both times the pistol missed fire. A born gambler, 
he judged that he was reserved for something great. 
He was: he conquered India. Then, after his life- 
work was fully accomplished, his third attempt at 
suicide was successful. 

After describing the dramatic incident at card- 
play, which he gave to the old buck as the only time 
in his life when he felt afraid, his companion re- 
marked that it was enough to scare anybody to face 
a loaded pistol. But here comes the paradox. Clive 
was intensely angry because his friend failed to see 
the point. "Why, I wasn't afraid he would shoot, I 
was afraid he wouldn't.'' Suppose the general had 
said contemptuously that young Clive was not worth 
the powder and ball it would take to kill him — sup- 
pose he had sent him away wholly safe and wholly 
disgraced. Then Clive would have instantly killed 
himself. Either the general was not clever enough 
to play this trump, or the clear unwinking eyes of his 
victim convicted him of sin. 

Clive was one of those exceedingly rare individ- 
uals >vho have never known the sensation of physical 



POEMS OF PARADOX 289 

fear. But I do not think he was really so brave as 
those men, who, cursed with an imagination that fills 
their minds with terror, nevertheless advance toward 
danger. For your real hero is one who does not al- 
low the desires of his body to control his mind. The 
body, always eager for safety, comfort, and pleasure, 
cries out against peril : but the mind, up in the con- 
ning-tower of the brain, drives the protesting and 
shivering body forward. Napoleon, who was a good 
judge of courage, called Ney the bravest of the 
brave: and I admired Ney more intensely when I 
learned that in battle he was in his heart always 
afraid. 

The courage of soldiers in the mass seems sub- 
lime, but it is the commonest thing on earth : all na- 
tions show it: it is probably an inexplicable com- 
pound of discipline, pride, shame, and rage : but in- 
dividuals differ from one another as sharply in cour- 
age as they do in mental ability. In sheer physical 
courage Clive has never been surpassed, and Brown- 
ing, who loved the manly virtues, saw in this cor- 
rupt and cruel man a great hero. 

The poem Miileykeh, which is one of the oldest 
of Oriental stories, is really an analysis of love. The 
mare was dearer to her owner than life itself : yet he 
intentionally surrendered her to his rival rather than 



290 BROWNING 

have her disgraced. His friends called him an idiot 
and a fool : but he replied, "You never have loved 
my Pearl." And indeed, from his point of view, 
they did not know the meaning of love. What is 
love? Simply the desire for possession, or the de- 
sire that the beloved object should be imcomparably 
pure and unsullied by defeat and disgrace? The 
man who owned Muleykeh really loved her, since 
her honor was more precious to him than his own 
happiness. 

The short poem Which f published on the last day 
of Browning's life, is a splendid paradox. In the 
Middle Ages, when house-parties assembled, an im- 
mense amount of time was taken up by the telling of 
stories and by the subsequent discussions thereupon. 
The stock subject was Love, and the ideal lover was 
a favorite point of debate. In this instance, the 
three court ladies argue, and to complete the para- 
dox, a Priest is chosen for referee. Perhaps he was 
thought to be out of it altogether, and thus ready to 
judge with an unprejudiced mind. 

The Duchess declares that her lover must be a 
man she can respect : a man of religion and patriot- 
ism. He must love his God, and his country; then 
comes his wife, who holds the third place in his af- 
fections. 



POEMS OF PARADOX 291 

I could not love thee, dear, so much, 
Loved I not honour more. 

The Marquise insists that her lover must be a man 
who has done something. He must not only be a 
man inspired by religious and patriotic motives, but 
must have actually suffered in her service. He has 
received wounds in combat, he is pointed out every- 
where as the man who has accomplished great deeds. 
I can not love him unless I can be proud of his 
record. 

The Comtesse says that her ideal lover must love 
her first : he must love her more than he loves God, 
more than he loves his country, more than he loves 
his life — yes, more than he loves his own honor. 
He must be willing, if necessary, not only to sacrifice 
his health and life in her behalf, indeed, any true 
knight would do that : he must be willing to sacrifice 
his good name, be false to his religion and a traitor 
to his country. What do I care whether he be a 
coward, a craven, a scoundrel, a hissing and a by- 
word, so long as he loves me most of all ? 

This is a difficult position for the Abbe, the man 
of God : but he does not flinch. His decision is that 
the third lover is the one of whom Almighty God 
would approve. 

One thing is certain : the third man really loved 



292 BROWNING 

his Lady. We do not know whether the other two 
loved or not. When a man talks a great deal about 
his honor, his self-respect, it is just possible that he 
loves himself more than he loves any one else. But 
the man who would go through hell to win a woman 
really loves that woman. Browning abhors selfish- 
ness. He detests a man who is kept from a certain 
course of action by thoughts of its possible results to 
his reputation. Ibsen has given us the standard ex- 
ample of what the first and second lover in this poem 
might sink to in a real moral crisis. In A DolVs 
House J the husband curses his wife because she has 
committed forgery, and his good name will suffer. 
She replied that she committed the crime to save his 
life — her motive was Love : and she had hoped that 
when the truth came out the miracle would happen : 
her husband would step forward and take the blame 
all on himself. "What fools you women are," said 
he, angrily: "you know nothing of business. I 
would work my fingers to the bone for you : I would 
give up my life for you : but you can't expect a man 
to sacrifice his honor for a woman." Her retort is 
one of the greatest in literature. "Millions of 
women have done it." 



POEMS OF PARADOX 293 

WHICH? 
1889 

So, the three Court-ladies began 
Their trial of who judged best 
In esteeming the love of a man : 
Who preferred with most reason was thereby confessed 
Boy-Cupid's exemplary catcher and eager ; 
An Abbe crossed legs to decide on the wager. 

First the Duchesse : "Mine for me — 

Who were it but God's for Him, 
And the King's for — who but he? 
Both faithful and loyal, one grace more shall brim 
His cup with perfection : a lady's true lover, 
He holds — save his God and his king — none above her." 

"I require'* — outspoke the Marquise — 

"Pure thoughts, ay, but also fine deeds: 
Play the paladin must he, to please 
My whim, and — to prove my knight's service exceeds 
Your saint's and your loyalist's praying and kneeling — 
Show wounds, each wide mouth to my mercy appealing." 

Then the Comtesse : "My choice be a wretch, 

Mere losel in body and soul. 
Thrice accurst ! What care I, so he stretch 
Arms to me his sole saviour, love's ultimate goal, 
Out of earth and men's noise — names of 'infidel,' 'traitor,' 
Cast up at him? Crown me, crown's adjudicator!" 

And the Abbe uncrossed his legs, 

Took snuff, a reflective pinch, 
Broke silence : "The question begs 
Much pondering ere I pronounce. Shall I flinch? 
The love which to one and one only has reference 
Seems terribly like what perhaps gains God's preference." 



VII 

browning's optimism 

^MONG all modern thinkers and writers, 
J \ Browning is the foremost optimist. He has 
left not the slightest doubt on this point ; his belief is 
stated over and over again, running like a vein of 
gold through all his poems from Pauline to Aso- 
lando. The shattered man in Pauline cries at the 
very last, 

I believe in God and Truth and Love. 

This staunch affirmation, "I believe !" is the common 
chord in Browning's music. His optimism is in 
striking contrast to the attitude of his contempo- 
raries, for the general tone of nineteenth century 
literature is pessimistic. Amidst the wails and' 
lamentations of the poets, the clear, triumphant voice 
of Browning is refreshing even to those who are not 
convinced. 

Browning suffered for his optimism. It is gener- 
ally thought that the optimist must be shallow and 
superficial ; whilst pessimism is associated with pro- 

294 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 295 

found and sincere thinking. Browning felt this crit- 
icism, and replied to it with a scriptural insult in his 
poem At the Mermaid. I can not possibly be a great 
poet, he said sneeringly, because I have never said I 
longed for death; I have enjoyed life and loved it, 
and have never assumed a peevish attitude. In an- 
other poem he declared that pessimists were liars, 
because they really loved life while pretending it was 
all suffering. 

It is only fair to Browning to remember that his 
optimism has a philosophical basis, and is the logical 
result of a firmly-held view of the universe. Many 
unthinking persons declare that Browning, with his 
jaunty good spirits, gets on their nerves ; he dodges 
or leaps over the real obstacles in life, and thinks he 
has solved difficulties when he has only forgotten 
them. They miss in Browning the note of sorrow, 
of internal struggle, of despair; and insist that he 
has never accurately portrayed the real bitterness of 
the heart's sufferings. These critics have never read 
attentively Browning's first poem. 

The poem Pauline shows that Browning had his 
Sturm und Drang, in common with all thoughtful 
young men. Keats' immortal preface to Endymion 
would be equally applicable to this youthful work. 
*The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the ma- 



296 BROWNING 

ture imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a 
space of Hfe between, in which the soul is in a fer- 
ment, the character undecided, the way of life un- 
certain, the ambition thick-sighted : thence proceeds 
mawkishness, and all the thousand bitters which 
those men I speak of must necessarily taste in going 
over the following pages.'* The astonishing thing is, 
that Browning emerged from the slough of despond 
at just the time when most young men are entering 
it. He not only climbed out, but set his face reso- 
lutely toward the Celestial City. 

The poem Pauline shows that young Browning 
passed through skepticism, atheism, pessimism, cyn- 
icism, and that particularly dark state when the mind 
reacts on itself; when enthusiasms, high hopes, and 
true faith seem childish ; when wit and mockery take 
the place of zeal, this diabolical substitution seeming 
for the moment to be an intellectual advance. But 
although he suffered from all these diseases of the 
soul, he quickly became convalescent and Paracelsus 
proves that his cure was complete. 

Browning's optimism is not based on any discount 
of the sufferings of life, nor any attempt to overlook 
such gross realities as sin and pain. No pessimist 
has realised these facts more keenly than he. The 
Pope, who is the poet's mouthpiece, calls the world 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 297 

a dread machinery of sin and sorrow. The world is 
full of sin and sorrow, but it is machinery — and ma- 
chinery is meant to make something ; in this instance 
the product is human character, which can not be 
made without obstacles, struggles, and torment. In 
Reverie, Browning goes even farther than this in his 
description of terrestrial existence. 

Head praises, but heart refrains 
From loving's acknowledgment 

Whole losses outweigh half-gains : 
Earth's good is with evil blent : 

Good struggles but evil reigns. 

Such an appraisal of life can hardly be called a blind 

and jaunty optimism. 

Browning declares repeatedly that the world 

shows clearly two attributes of God : immense force 

and immense intelligence. We can not worship God, 

however, merely because He is strong and wise ; He 

must be better than we are to win our respect and 

homage. The third necessary attribute. Love, is not 

at all clear in the spectacle furnished by science and 

history. Where then shall we seek it? His answer 

is, in the revelation of God's love through Jesus 

Christ. 

What lacks then of perfection fit for God 
But just the instance which this tale supplies 
Of love without a limit? 



298 BROWNING 

Browning's philosophy therefore is purely Christian. 
The love of God revealed in the Incarnation and 
in our own ethical natures — our imperfect souls con- 
taining here and now the possibilities of infinite de- 
velopment — makes Browning believe that this is 
God's world and we are God's children. He con- 
ceives of our life as an eternal one, our existence 
here being merely probation. No one has ever be- 
lieved more rationally and more steadfastly in the 
future life than our poet; and his optimism is based 
solidly on this faith. The man who believes in the 
future life, he seems to say, may enjoy whole-heart- 
edly and enthusiastically the positive pleasures of 
this world, and may endure with a firm mind its 
evils and its terrible sufferings. Take Christianity 
out of Browning, and his whole philosophy, with its 
cheerful outlook, falls to the ground. Of all true 
English poets, he is the most definitely Christian, the 
most sure of his ground. He wrote out his own 
evangelical creed in Christmas-Eve and Easter Day; 
but even if we did not have these definite assurances, 
poems like A Death in the Desert and Gold Hair 
would be sufficient. 

Sequels are usually failures : the sequel to Saul is 
a notable exception to the rule. The first part of the 
poem, including the first nine stanzas, was published 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 299 

among the Dramatic Romances in 1845 : in 1855, 
among the Men and Women, appeared the whole 
work, containing ten additional stanzas. This sequel 
is fully up to the standard of the original in artistic 
beauty, and contains a quite new climax, of even 
greater intensity. The ninth stanza closes with the 
cry "King Saul!" — he represents the last word of 
physical manhood, the finest specimen on earth of 
the athlete. The eighteenth stanza closes with the 
cry "See the Christ stand !" — He represents the cli- 
max of all human history, the appearance on earth 
of God in man. The first man is of the earth, 
earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven. 
And as w^e have borne the image of the earthy, we 
shall also bear the image of the heavenly. 

No modern Pagan has ever sung the joy of life 
with more gusto than Browning trolls it out in the 
ninth stanza. The glorious play of the muscles, the 
rapture of the chase, the delight of the plunge into 
cold water, the delicious taste of food and wine, the 
unique sweetness of deep sleep. No shame attaches 
to earthly delights : let us rejoice in our health and 
strength, in exercise, recreation, eating and sleeping. 
Saul was a cowboy before he was a King ; and young 
David in his music takes the great monarch back to 
the happy carefree days on the pasture, before the 



300 BROWNING 

responsibilities of the crown had given him melan- 
cholia. The effect of music on patients suffering 
from nervous depression is as well known now as it 
was in Saul's day; Shakespeare knew something 
about it. His physicians are sometimes admirable ; 
the great nervous specialist called in on Lady Mac- 
beth's case is a model of wisdom and discretion : the 
specialist that Queen Cordelia summoned to pre- 
scribe for her father, after giving him trional, or 
something of that nature, was careful to have his 
return to consciousness accompanied by suitable 
music. Such terrible fits of melancholy as afflicted 
Saul were called in the Old Testament the visitations 
of an evil spirit; and there is no better diagnosis to- 
day. The Russian novelist Turgenev suffered ex- 
actly in the manner in which Browning describes 
Saul's sickness of heart : for several days he would 
remain in an absolute lethargy, like the king-serpent 
in his winter sleep. And, as in the case of Saul, 
music helped him more than medicine. 

When David had carried the music to its fullest 
extent, the spirit of prophecy came upon him, as in 
the Messianic Psalms, and in the eighteenth stanza, 
he joyfully infers from the combination of man's 
love and man's weakness, that God's love is equal to 
God's power. Man's will is powerless to change the 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 301 

world of atoms : from God's will stream the stars. 
Yet if man's will were equal in power to his benevo- 
lence, how quickly would I, David, restore Saul to 
happiness ! The fact that I love my King with such 
intensity, whilst I am powerless to change his condi- 
tion, makes me believe in the coming of Him who 
shall have my wish to help humanity with the accom- 
panying power. Man is contemptible in his strength, 
but divine in his ideals. 'Tis not what man Does 
w^hich exalts him, but what man Would do ! 

The last stanza of the poem has been thought by 
some critics to be a mistake, worse than superfluous. 
For my part, I am very glad that Browning added it. 
Up to this point, we have had exhibited the effect of 
the music on Saul : now we see the effect on the man 
who produced it, David. While it is of course im- 
possible even to imagine how a genius must feel 
immediately after releasing some immortal work 
that has swollen his heart, we can not help making 
conjectures. If we are so affected by hearing the 
Ninth Symphony, what must have been the sensa- 
tions of Beethoven at its birth? When Handel 
wrote the Hallelujah Chorus, he declared that he 
saw the heavens opened, and the Son of God sitting 
in glory, and I think he spoke the truth. After 
Thackeray had written a certain passage in Vanity 



302 BROWNING 

Fair, he rushed wildly about the room, shouting 
"That's Genius!" 

Now no man in the history of literature has been 
more reticent than Browning in describing his emo- 
tions after virtue had passed out of him. He never 
talked about his poetry if he could help it; and the 
hundreds of people who met him casually met a 
fluent and pleasant conversationalist, who gave not 
the slightest sign of ever having been on the heights. 
We know, for example, that on the third day of 
January, 1852, Browning wrote in his Paris lodg- 
ings to the accompaniment of street omnibuses the 
wonderful poem Childe Roland: what a marvellous 
day that must have been in his spiritual life! In 
what a frenzy of poetic passion must have passed 
the hours when he saw those astounding visions, and 
heard the blast of the horn in the horrible sunset! 
He must have been inspired by the very demon of 
poetry. And yet, so far as we know, he never told 
any one about that day, nor left any written record 
either of that or any other of the great moments in 
his life. In The Ring and the Book, he tells us of the 
passion, mystery and wonder that filled his soul on 
the night of the day when he had found the old yel- 
low volume: but he has said nothing of his sensa- 
tions when he wrote the speech of Pompilia. 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 303 

This is why I am glad he added the last stanza to 
Saul. It purports to be a picture of David's drunken 
rapture, when, after the inspiration had flowed 
through his soul, he staggered home through the 
night. About him were angels, powers, unuttered, 
unseen, alive, aware. The whole earth was awakened, 
hell loosed with her crews; the stars of night 
beat with emotion. David is Browning himself; 
and the poet is trying to tell us, in the only way pos- 
sible to a man like Browning, how the floods of his 
own genius affected him. He gives a somewhat 
similar picture in Aht Vogler. It is not in the least 
surprising that he could not write or talk to his 
friends about such marvellous experiences. Can a 
man who has looked on the face of God, and dwelt 
in the heavenly places, talk about it to others ? 

Furthermore this nineteenth stanza of Saul con- 
tains a picture of the dawn that has never been sur- 
passed in poetry. Only those who have spent nights 
in the great woods can really understand it. 

SAUL 

1845-1855 

I 

Said Abner, "At last thou art come! Ere I tell, ere thou 

speak, 
Kiss my cheek, wish me well !" Then I wished it, and did kiss 
his cheek. 



304 BROWNING 

And he: "Since the King, O my friend, for thy countenance 

sent, 
Neither drunken nor eaten have we ; nor until from his tent 
Thou return with the joyful assurance the King liveth yet. 
Shall our lip with the honey be bright, with the water be wet. 
For out of the black mid-tent's silence, a space of three days, 
Not a sound hath escaped to thy servants, of prayer nor of 

praise. 
To betoken that Saul and the Spirit have ended their strife, 
And that, faint in his triumph, the monarch sinks back upon 

life. 

II 

"Yet now my heart leaps, O beloved ! God's child with his 

dew 
On thy gracious gold hair, and those lilies still living and blue 
Just broken to twine round thy harp-strings, as if no wild 

heat 
Were now raging to torture the desert I" 

III 

Then I, as was meet. 
Knelt down to the God of my fathers, and rose on my feet, 
And ran o'er the sand burnt to powder. The tent was un- 

looped ; 
I pulled up the spear that obstructed, and under I stooped; 
Hands and knees on the slippery grass-patch, all withered and 

gone, 
That extends to the second enclosure, I groped my way on 
Till I felt where the foldskirts fly open. Then once more 1 

prayed, 
And opened the foldskirts and entered, and was not afraid 
But spoke, "Here is David, thy servant!" And no voice re- 
plied. 
At the first I saw naught but the blackness : but soon I de- 
scried 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 305 

A something more black than the blackness — the vast, the up- 
right 

Main prop which sustains the pavilion : and slow into sight 

Grew a figure against it, gigantic and blackest of all. 

Then a sunbeam, that burst through the tent-roof, showed 
Saul. 

IV 

He stood as erect as that tent-prop, both arms stretched out 

wide 
On the great cross-support in the centre, that goes to each 

side ; 
He relaxed not a muscle, but hung there as, caught in his 

pangs 
And waiting his change, the king-serpent all heavily hangs. 
Far away from his kind, in the pine, till deliverance come 
With the spring-time, — so agonized Saul, drear and stark, 

blind and dumb. 



Then I tuned my harp, — took off the lilies we twine round 
its chords 

Lest they snap 'neath the stress of the noontide — those sun- 
beams like swords ! 

And I first played the tune all our sheep know, as, one after 
one. 

So docile they come to the pen-door till folding be done. 

They are white and untorn by the bushes, for lo, they have 
fed 

Where the long grasses stifle the water within the stream's 
bed; 

And now one after one seeks its lodging, as star follows star 

Into eve and the blue far above us,— -so blue and so farl 



306 BROWNING 

VI 

— Then the tune for which quails on the corn-land will each 

leave his mate 
To fly after the player ; then, what makes the crickets elate 
Till for boldness they fight one another; and then, what has 

weight 
To set the quick jerboa a-musing outside his sand house- 
There are none such as he for a wonder, half bird and half 

mouse ! 
God made all the creatures and gave them our love and our 

fear, 
To give sign, we and they are his children, one family here. 

VII 

Then I played the help-tune of our reapers, their wine-song, 

when hand 
Grasps at hand, eye lights eye in good friendship, and great 

hearts expand 
And grow one in the sense of this world's life. — And then, the 

last song 
When the dead man is praised on his journey — '"Bear, bear 

him along. 
With his few faults shut up like dead flowerets I Are balm 

seeds not here 
To console us? The land has none left such as he on the bier. 
Oh, would we might keep thee, my brother 1" — And then, the 

glad chaunt 
Of the marriage, — first go the young maidens, next, she whom 

we vaunt 
As the beauty, the pride of our dwelling. — And then, the great 

march 
Wherein man runs to man to assist him and buttress an arch 
Naught can break ; who shall harm them, our friends ? Then, 

the chorus intoned 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 307. 

As the Levites go up to the altar In glory enthroned. 

But I stopped here : for here in the darkness Saul groaned. 

VIII 

And I paused, held my breath in such silence, and listened 

apart ; 
And the tent shook, for mighty Saul shuddered: and sparkles 

'gan dart 
From the jewels that woke in his turban, at once with a start, 
All its lordly male-sapphires, and rubies courageous at heart. 
So the head: but the body still moved not, still hung there 

erect. 
And I bent once again to my playing, pursued it unchecked, 
As I sang: — 

IX 

"Oh, our manhood's prime vigour ! No spirit feels waste, 
Not a muscle is stopped in its playing nor sinew unbraced. 
Oh, the wild joys of living! the leaping from rock up to rock, 
The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, the cool silver 

shock 
Of the plunge in a pool's living water, the hunt of the bear, 
And the sultriness showing the lion is couched in his lair. 
And the meal, the rich dates yellowed over with gold dust 

divine, 
And the locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher, the full draught of 

wine, 
And the sleep in the dried river-channel where bulrushes tell 
That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well. 
How good is man's life, the mere living ! how fit to employ 
All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy! 
Hast thou loved the white locks of thy father, whose sword 

thou didst guard 
When he trusted thee forth with the armies, for glorious re- 
ward? 



308 BROWNING 

Didst thou see the thin hands of thy mother, held up as men 

sung 
The low song of the nearly-departed, and hear her faint 

tongue 
Joining in while it could to the witness, Tet one more attest, 
I have lived, seen God's hand through a lifetime, and all was 

for best'? 
Then they sung through their tears in strong triumph, not 

much, but the rest. 
And thy brothers, the help and the contest, the working 

whence grew 
Such result as, from seething grape-bundles, the spirit 

strained true: 
And the friends of thy boyhood — that boyhood of wonder 

and hope, 
Present promise and wealth of the future beyond the eye's 

scope, — 
Till lo, thou art grown to a monarch ; a people is thine ; 
And all gifts, which the world offers singly, on one head com- 
bine! 
On one head, all the beauty and strength, love and rage (like 

the throe 
That, a- work in the rock, helps its labour and lets the gold go) 
High ambition and deeds which surpass it, fame crowning 

them, — all 
Brought to blaze on the head of one creature — King Saul !" 

X 

And lo, with that leap of my spirit,— heart, hand, harp and 

voice. 
Each lifting Saul's name out of sorrow, each bidding rejoice 
Saul's fame in the light it was made for — as when, dare I say. 
The Lord's army, in rapture of service, strains through its 

array, 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 309 

And upsoareth the cherubim-chariot — "Saul!" cried I, and 

stopped, 
And waited the thing that should follow. Then Saul, who 

hung propped 
By the tent's cross-support in the centre, was struck by his 

name. 
Have ye seen when Spring's arrowy summons goes right to 

the aim, 
And some mountain, the last to withstand her, that held (he 

alone. 
While the vale laughed in freedom and flowers) on a broad 

bust of stone 
A year's snow bound about for a breastplate, — leaves grasp of 

the sheet? 
Fold on fold all at once it crowds thunderously down to his 

feet, 
And there fronts you, stark, black, but alive yet, your moun- 
tain of old, 
With his rents, the successive bequeathlngs of ages untold — 
Yea, each harm got in fighting your battles, each furrow and 

scar 
Of his head thrust 'twixt you and the tempest — all hail, there 

they are! 
— Now again to be softened with verdure, again hold the nest 
Of the dove, tempt the goat aiid its young to the green on his 

crest 
For their food m the ardours of summer. One long shudder 

thrilled 
All the tent till the very air tingled, then sank and was stilled 
At the King's self left standing before me, released and 

aware. 
What was gone, what remained? All to traverse 'twIxt hope 

and despair, 



310 BROWNING 

Death was past, life not come : so he waited. Awhile his right 

hand 
Held the brow, helped the eyes left too vacant forthwith to 

remand 
To their place what new objects should enter: 'twas Saul as 

before. 
I looked up and dared gaze at those eyes, nor was hurt any 

more 
Than by slow pallid sunsets in autumn, we watch from the 

shore, 
At their sad level gaze o'er the ocean — a sun's slow decline 
Over hills which, resolved in stern silence, o'erlap and entwine 
Base with base to knit strength more intensely ; so, arm folded 

arm 
O'er the chest whose slow heavings subsided. 



XI 

What spell or what charm, 
(For awhile there was trouble within me,) what next should 

I urge 
To sustain him where song had restored him? — Song filled to 

the verge 
His cup with the wine of this life, pressing all that it yields 
Of mere fruitage, the strength and the beauty : beyond, on 

what fields. 
Glean a vintage more potent and perfect to brighten the eye 
And bring blood to the lip, and commend them the cup they 

put by? 
He saith, "It is good ;" still he drinks not : he lets me praise 

life, 
Gives assent, yet would die for his own part. 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 311 

XII 

Then fancies grew rife 
Which had come long ago on the pasture, when round me the 

sheep 
Fed in silence — above, the one eagle wheeled slow as in sleep ; 
And I lay in my hollow and mused on the world that might 

lie 
'Neath his ken, though I saw but the strip 'twixt the hill and 

the sky : 
And I laughed — "Since my days are ordained to be passed 

with my flocks, 
Let me people at least, with my fancies, the plains and the 

rocks. 
Dream the life I am never to mix with, and image the show 
Of mankind as they live in those fashions I hardly shall know I 
Schemes of life, its best rules and right uses, the courage 

that gains. 
And the prudence that keeps what men strive for." And now 

these old trains 
Of vague thought came again; I grew surer; so, once more 

the string 
Of my harp made response to my spirit, as thus — 

XIII 

"Yea, my King," 

I began — "thou dost well in rejecting mere comforts that 
spring 

From the mere mortal life held in common by man and by 
brute : 

In our flesh grows the branch of this life, in our soul it bears 
fruit. 

Thou hast marked the slow rise of the tree, — how its stem 
trembled first 

Till it passed the kid's lip, the stag's antler; then safely out- 
burst 



312 BROWNING 

The fan-branches all round; and thou mindest when these 

too, in turn, 
Broke a-bloom and the palm-tree seemed perfect: yet more 

was to learn, 
E'en the good that comes in with the palm-fruit. Our dates 

shall we slight, 
When their juice brings a cure for all sorrow? or care for the 

plight 
Of the palm's self whose slow growth produced them? Not 

so ! stem and branch 
Shall decay, nor be known in their place, while the palm-wine 

shall stanch 
Every wound of man's spirit in winter. I pour thee such wine. 
Leave the flesh to the fate it was fit for ! the spirit be thine ! 
By the spirit, when age shall o'ercome thee, thou still shalt 

enjoy 
More indeed, than at first when inconscious, the life of a boy. 
Crush that life, and behold its wine running 1 Each deed thou 

hast done 
Dies, revives, goes to work in the world ; until e'en as the sun 
Looking down on the earth, though clouds spoil him, though 

tempests efface, 
Can find nothing his own deed produced not, must everywhere 

trace 
The results of his past summer-prime, — so, each ray of thy 

will, 
Every flash of thy passion and prowess, long over, shall thrill 
Thy whole people, the countless, with ardor, till they too give 

forth 
A like cheer to their sons, who in turn, fill the South and the 

North 
With the radiance thy deed was the germ of. Carouse in the 

past! 
But the license of age has its limit; thou diest at last: 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 313 

As the lion when age dims his eyeball, the rose at her height, 
So with man — so his power and his beauty forever take flight. 
No 1 Again a long draught of my soul-wine I Look forth o'er 

the years I 
Thou hast done now v/ith eyes for the actual ; begin with the 

seer's ! 
Is Saul dead? In the depth of the vale make his tomb — bid 

arise 
A gray mountain of marble heaped four-square, till, built to 

the skies, 
Let it mark where the great First King slumbers : whose fame 

would ye know? 
Up above see the rock's naked face, where the record shall go 
In great characters cut by the scribe, — Such was Saul, so he 

did; 
With the sages directing the work, by the populace chid, — 
For not half, they'll affirm, is comprised there! Which fault 

to amend, 
In the grove with his kind grows the cedar, whereon they 

shall spend 
(See, in tablets 'tis level before them) their praise, and record 
With the gold of the graver, Saul's story, — the statesman's 

great word 
Side by side with the poet's sweet comment. The river's 

a-wave 
With smooth paper-reeds grazing each other when prophet- 
winds rave : 
So the pen gives unborn generations their due and their part 
In thy being! Then, first of the mighty, thank God that thou 

art!" 

XIV 

And behold while I sang . . . but O Thou who didst grant me 

that day, 
And before it not seldom hast granted thy help to essay, 



314 BROWNING 

Carry on and complete an adventure, — my shield and my 

sword 
In that act where my soul was thy servant, thy word was my 

word, — 
Still be with me, who then at the summit of human endeavour 
And scaling the highest, man's thought could, gazed hopeless 

as ever 
On the new stretch of heaven above me — till, mighty to save, 
Just one lift of thy hand cleared that distance — God's throne 

from man's grave ! 
Let me tell out my tale to its ending — my voice to my heart 
Which can scarce dare believe in what marvels last night I 

took part, 
As this morning I gather the fragments, alone with my sheep. 
And still fear lest the terrible glory evanish like sleep ! 
For I wake in the gray dewy covert, while Hebron upheaves 
The dawn struggling with night on his shoulder, and Kidron 

retrieves 
Slow the damage of yesterday's sunshine. 

XV 

I say then, — my song 

While I sang thus, assuring the monarch, and ever more 
strong 

Made a proflfer of good to console him — he slowly resumed 

His old motions and habitudes kingly. The right hand re- 
plumed 

His black locks to their wonted composure, adjusted the 
swathes 

Of his turban, and see — the huge sweat that his countenance 
bathes. 

He wipes off with the robe; and he girds now his loins as of 
yore, 

And feels slow for the armlets of price, with the clasp set 
before. 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 315 

He is Saul, ye remember in glory, — ere error had bent 

The broad brow from the daily communion ; and still, though 

much spent 
Be the Hfe and the bearing that front you, the same, God did 

choose, 
To receive what a man may waste, desecrate, never quite lose. 
So sank he along by the tent-prop till, stayed by the pile 
Of his armour and war-cloak and garments, he leaned there 

awhile, 
And sat out my singing, — one arm round the tent-prop, to 

raise 
His bent head, and the other hung slack — till I touched on the 

praise 
I foresaw from all men in all time, to the man patient there ; 
And thus ended, the harp falling forward. Then first I was 

'ware 
That he sat, as I say, with my head just above his vast knees 
Which were thrust out on each side around me, like oak roots 

which please 
To encircle a lamb when it slumbers. I looked up to know 
If the best I could do had brought solace: he spoke not, but 

slow 
Lifted up the hand slack at his side, till he laid it with care 
Soft and grave, but in mild settled will, on my brow : through 

my hair 
The large fingers were pushed, and he bent back my head, with 

kind power — 
All my face back, intent to peruse it, as men do a flower. 
Thus held he me there with his great eyes that scrutinized 

mine — 
And oh, all my heart how it loved him ! but where was the 

sign ? 
I yearned — "Could I help thee, my father, inventing a bliss, 
I would add, to that life of the past, both the future and this; 



316 BROWNING 

I would give thee new life altogether, as good, ages hence, 
As this moment, — ^had love but the warrant, love's heart to 
dispense 1" 

XVI 

Then the truth came upon me. No harp more — no song more I 
outbroke — 

XVII 

"I have gone the whole round of creation : I saw and I spoke : 
I, a work of God's hand for that purpose, received in my brain 
And pronounced on the rest of his handwork — returned him 

again 
His creation's approval or censure : I spoke as I saw : 
I report, as a man may of God's work — all's love, yet all's law. 
Now I lay down the judgeship he lent me. Each faculty 

tasked 
To perceive him, has gained an abyss, where a dewdrop was 

asked. 
Have I knowledge? confounded it shrivels at Wisdom laid 

bare. 
Have I forethought? how purblind, how blank, to the Infinite 

Carel 
Do I task any faculty highest, to image success ? 
I but open my eyes, — and perfection, no more and no less, 
In the kind I imagined, full-fronts me, and God is seen God 
In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul and the clod. 
And thus looking within and around me, I ever renew 
(With that stoop of the soul which in bending upraises it too) 
The submission of man's nothing-perfect to God's all-complete, 
As by each new obeisance in spirit, I climb to his feet. 
Yet with all this abounding experience, this deity known, 
I shall dare to discover some province, some gift of my own. 
There's a faculty pleasant to exercise, hard to hoodwink, 
I am fain to keep still in abeyance, (I laugh as I think) 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 317. 

Lest, insisting to claim and parade in it, wot ye, I worst 
E'en the Giver in one gift. — Behold, I could love if I durst 1 
But I sink the pretension as fearing a man may o'ertake 
God's own speed in the one way of love: I abstain for love's 

sake. 
— What, my soul? see thus far and no farther? when doors 

great and small, 
Nine-and-ninety flew ope at our touch, should the hundredth 

appall? 
In the least things have faith, yet distrust in the greatest of 

all? 
Do I find love so full in my nature, God's ultimate gift, 
That I doubt his own love can compete with it? Here, the 

parts shift? 
Here, the creature surpass the Creator, — the end, what Began ? 
Would I fain in my impotent yearning do all for this man. 
And dare doubt he alone shall not help him, who yet alone' 

can? 
Would it ever have entered my mind, the bare will, much less 

power. 
To bestow on this Saul what I sang of, the marvellous dower 
Of the life he was gifted and filled with? to make such a soul. 
Such a body, and then such an earth for insphering the whole? 
And doth it not enter my mind (as my warm tears attest) 
These good things being given, to go on, and give one more, 

the best? 
Ay, to save and redeem and restore him, maintain at the height 
This perfection, — succeed with life's day-spring, death's minute 

of night? 
Interpose at the difficult minute, snatch Saul the mistake, 
Saul the failure, the ruin he seems now, — and bid him awake 
From the dream, the probation, the prelude, to find himself set 
Clear and safe in new light and new life, — a new harmony yet 



318 BROWNING 

To be run, and continued, and ended — who knows?— or en- 
dure! 

The man taught enough by life's dream, of the rest to make 
sure; 

By the pain-throb, triumphantly winning intensified bliss. 

And the next world's reward and repose, by the struggles in 
this. 

XVIII 

"I believe it ! 'Tis thou, God, that givest, 'tis I who receive : 

In the first is the last, in thy will is my power to believe. 

All's one gift : thou canst grant it moreover, as prompt to my 
prayer 

As I breathe out this breath, as I open these arms to the air. 

From thy will stream the worlds, life and nature, thy dread 
Sabaoth : 

/ will ? — the mere atoms despise me ! Why am I not loth 

To look that, even that in the face too ? Why is it I dare 

Think but lightly of such impuissance? What stops my de- 
spair ? 

This; — 'tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what 
man Would do I 

See the King — I would help him but cannot, the wishes fall 
through. 

Could I wrestle to raise him from sorrow, grow poor to en- 
rich. 

To fill up his life, starve my own out, I would — knowing 
which, 

I know that my service is perfect. Oh, speak through me 
now! 

Would I suffer for him that I love ? So wouldst thou — so wilt 
thou! 

So shall crown thee the topmost, ineff ablest, uttermost crown—* 

And thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor leave up nor down 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 319 

One spot for the creature to stand in ! It is by no breath, 
Turn of eye, wave of hand, that salvation joins issue with 

death 1 
As thy Love is discovered almighty, almighty be proved 
Thy power, that exists with and for it, of being Beloved ! 
He who did most, shall bear most; the strongest shall stand 

the most weak. 
'Tis the weakness in strength, that I cry for 1 my flesh, that I 

seek 
In the Godhead ! I seek and I find it. O Saul, it shall be 
A Face Hke my face that receives thee ; a Man like to me, 
Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever: a Hand like this 

hand 
Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee I See the 

Christ stand !" 

XIX 

I know not too well how I found my way home in the night. 
There were witnesses, cohorts about me, to left and to right, 
Angels, powers, the unuttered, unseen, the alive, the aware : 
I repressed, I got through them as hardly, as strugglingly 

there, 
As a runner beset by the populace famished for news — 
Life or death. The whole earth was awakened, hell loosed 

with her crews ; 
And the stars of night beat with emotion, and tingled and shot 
Out in fire the strong pain of pent knowledge : but I fainted 

not. 
For the Hand still impelled me at once and supported, sup- 
pressed 
All the tumult, and quenched it with quiet, and holy behest, 
Till the rapture was shut in itself, and the earth sank to rest. 
Anon at the dawn, all that trouble had withered from earth— i 
Not so much, but I saw it die out in the day's tender birth ; 



320 BROWNING 

In the gathered intensity brought to the grey of the hills ; 

In the shuddering forests' held breath; in the sudden wind- 
thrills ; 

In the startled wild beasts that bore off, each with eye sidling 
still 

Though averted with wonder and dread ; in the birds stiff and 
chill 

That rose heavily, as I approached them, made stupid with 
awe: 

E'en the serpent that slid away silent, — ^he felt the new law. 

The same stared in the white humid faces upturned by the 
flowers ; 

The same worked in the heart of the cedar and moved the 
vine-bowers : 

And the little brooks witnessing murmured, persistent and low, 

With their obstinate, all but hushed voices — "E'en so, it is so !" 

On a clear, warm day in March, 1912, I stood on 
the Piazza Michel Angelo in Florence, with a copy 
of Browning in my hand, and gazed with delight on 
the panorama of the fair city below. Then I read 
aloud the first two stanzas oi Old Pictures in Flor- 
ence, and realised for the thousandth time the defi- 
niteness of Browning's poetry. This particular 
poem is a mixture of art and doggerel; but even the 
latter is interesting to lovers of Florence. 
Not a churlish saint, Lorenzo Monaco ? 

Did you ever stand in front of the picture by Lo- 
renzo that Browning had in mind, and observe the 
churlish saints ? Most saints in Italian pictures look 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 321 

either happy or complacent ; because they have just 
been elected to the society of heaven and are in for 
life. But for some strange reason, Lorenzo's saints, 
although in the Presence, and worshipping with 
music, look as if they were suffering from acute in- 
digestion. If one will wander about the galleries of 
Florence, and take along Browning, one will find the 
poet more specifically informing than Baedeker. 

The philosophy of this poem is Browning's fa- 
vorite philosophy of development. He compares 
the perfection of Greek art with the imperfection of 
the real human body. We know what a man ought 
to look like; and if we have forgotten, we may be- 
hold a representation by a Greek sculptor. Stand at 
the corner of a city street, and watch the men pass; 
they are caricatures of the manly form. Yet ludi- 
crously ugly as they are, the intention is clear; we 
see even in these degradations, what the figure of a 
man ought to be. In Greek art 

The Truth of Man, as by God first spoken, 
Which the actual generations garble, 
Was reuttered. 

Which the actual generations garble — men as we see 
them are clumsy and garbled versions of the origi- 
nal. But there is no value in lamenting this; it is 
idle for men to gaze with regret and longing at the 



Z22 BROWNING 

Apollo Belvedere. It is much better to remember 
that Perfection and Completion spell Death: only 
Imperfection has a future. What if the souls in our 
ridiculously ugly bodies become greater and grander 
than the marble men o f Pheidias ? Giotto's unfinished 
Campanile is nobler than the perfect zero he drew 
for the Pope. In our imperfect minds, housed in 
our over-fat, over-lean, and always commonplace 
bodies, exists the principle of development, for 
whose steady advance eternity is not too long. 
Statues belong to time : man has Forever. 

For some strange reason, no tourist ever goes to 
Fano. One reason why I went there was simply be- 
cause I had never met a person of any nationality 
who had ever seen the town. Yet it is easily accessi- 
ble, very near Ancona, the scene of the Gramma- 
rian^ s Funeral, and the place where Browning wrote 
The Guardian Angel. One day Mr. and Mrs. Brown- 
ing, walking about Fano, came to the church of San 
Agostino, in no way a remarkable edifice, and there 
in the tiny chapel, over the altar, they found Guer- 
cino's masterpiece. Its calm and serene beauty 
struck an immortal poem out of Browning's heart; 
and thanks to the poet, the picture is now one of the 
most familiar in the world. But no copy comes near 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 323 

the ineffable charm of the original, as one sees it in 
the dim light of the chapel. 

The child on the tomb is looking past the angel's 
face into the glory of heaven; but the poet, who 
wishes that he might take the place of the little child, 
declares that he would gaze, not toward heaven, but 
into the gracious face of the bird of God. If we 
could only see life as the angel sees it, if we could 
only see the whole course of history, we should then 
realise that 

All is beauty : 
And knowing this, is love, and love is duty. 

We can not see the forest for the trees : the last place 
to obtain an idea of the range, grandeur, and beauty 
of a forest, is in it : one should climb a high moun- 
tain and look over its vast extent. So we, in life, 
"where men sit and hear each other groan," believe 
that the world is some dreadful mistake, full of 
meaningless anguish. This is because we are in the 
midst of it all: we can not see far: the nearest ob- 
jects, though infinitesimal in size, loom enormous, as 
with the palm of your hand you can cut off the sun. 
But if we could only see the end from the beginning, 
if we could get the angel's view-point, the final re- 



324 BROWNING 

suit would be beauty. Browning is not satisfied with 
Keats's doctrine 

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," — that is all 
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. 

He shows us what happened to Aprile with this phi- 
losophy. Browning adds the doctrine of love. The 
moment we realise that the universe is conceived in 
terms of beauty, love fills our hearts : love for our 
fellow-beings, who are making the journey through 
life with us; and love for God, the author of it all, 
just as a child loves one who gives it the gift of its 
heart's desire. That the supreme duty of life is love 
is simply one more illustration of Browning's stead- 
fast adherence to the Gospel of Christ. 

THE GUARDIAN-ANGEL 

A PICTURE AT FANO 
1855 



Dear and great Angel, wouldst thou only leave 
That child, when thou hast done with him, for me I 

Let me sit all the day here, that when eve' 
Shall find performed thy special ministry. 

And time come for departure, thou, suspending 

Thy flight, mayst see another child for tending, 
Another still, to quiet and retrieve. 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 325 

II 

Then I shall feel thee step one step, no more, 
From where thou standest now, to where I gaze, 

— And suddenly my head is covered o'er 

With those wings, white above the child who prays 

Now on that tomb — and I shall feel thee guarding 

Me, out of all the world; for me, discarding 
Yon heaven thy home, that waits and opes its door. 

Ill 

I would not look up thither past thy head 
Because the door opes, like that child, I know, 

For I should have thy gracious face instead. 
Thou bird of God 1 And wilt thou bend me low 

Like him, and lay, like his, my hands together, 

And lift them up to pray, and gently tether 
Me, as thy lamb there, with thy garment's spread ? 

IV 

If this was ever granted, I would rest 

My head beneath thine, while thy healing hands 

Close-covered both my eyes beside thy breast, 
Pressing the brain, which too much thought expands, 

Back to its proper size again, and smoothing 

Distortion down till every nerve had soothing. 
And all lay quiet, happy and suppressed. 

V 

How soon all worldly wrong would be repaired ! 

I think how I should view the earth and skies 
And sea, when once again my brow was bared 

After thy healing, with such different eyes. 
O world, as God has made it ! All is beauty : 
And knowing this, is love, and love is duty. 

What further may be sought for or declared ? 



326 BROWNING 

VI 

Guercino drew this angel I saw teach 

(Alfred, dear friend!) — that little child to pray. 

Holding the little hands up, each to each 

Pressed gently, — with his own head turned away 

Over the earth where so much lay before him 

Of work to do, though heaven was opening o'er him, 
And he was left at Fano by the beach. 

VII 

We were at Fano, and three times we went 

To sit and see him in his chapel there, 
And drink his beauty to our soul's content 

«— -My angel with me too : and since I care 
For dear Guercino's fame (to which in power 
And glory comes this picture for a dower, 

Fraught with a pathos so magnificent)— = 

VIII 

And since he did not work thus earnestly 
At all times, and has else endured some wrong — 

I took one thought his picture struck from me. 
And spread it out, translating it to song. 

My love is here. Where are you, dear old friend? 

How rolls the Wairoa at your world's far end ? 
This is Ancona, yonder is the sea. 

The three poems, Caliban on Setehos, Rabbi Ben 
Ezra, and A Death in the Desert, should be read in 
that order; for there is a logical order in the 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 127^ 

thought. The first is God as an amphibious brute 
would imagine him: the second is noble Hebrew 
theism: the third is the Christian God of Love. 
Whilst the second is the finest poem of the three, the 
first is the most original. The word "upon'* is iron- 
ical: it is Caliban's treatise on theology. We read 
Caliban on God, as we read Mill on Political Econ- 
omy: for Caliban, like many a human theologian, 
does not scruple to speak the last word on the nature 
of the Supreme Being. The citation from the 
Psalms is a rebuke to gross anthropomorphism: 
Caliban, like the Puritans, has simply made God in 
his own image. 

The difference between Shakespeare's and Brown- 
ing's Caliban is simply the difference between 
Shakespeare and Browning. Shakespeare made the 
monster for decorative purposes, to satisfy his love 
of the grotesque, as an architect placed gargoyles on 
a cathedral: the grotesque is an organic part of 
romantic art. Browning is interested not in Cali- 
ban's appearance, but in his processes of thought. 
Suppose a monster, half fish, half beast, living with 
supreme comfort in the slime, could think: what 
kind of God would he imagine had created this 
world ? 

Caliban speaks in the third person (does Brown- 



328 BROWNING 

ing make a slip when he changes occasionally to the 
first?) in order to have indicated the low order of 
his intelligence; just as a little child says, "Don't 
hurt her : she hasn't done anything wrong." He is 
lying in liquid refuse, with little lizards deliciously 
tickling his spine (such things are entirely a matter 
of taste, what would be odious to us would be heaven 
to a sow) and having nothing to do for the moment, 
like a man in absolute leisure, turns his thoughts to 
God. He believes that God is neither good nor bad, 
but simply capricious. What's the use of being God, 
if you can't do what you like? He treats earth's 
creatures as a wanton boy treats his toys ; they be- 
long to me; why shouldn't I break them if I choose? 
No one ought to complain of misfortunes: you can 
not expect God is going to reward the virtuous and 
punish the guilty. He has no standards whatever. 
Just as I, Caliban, sit here and watch a procession of 
crabs : I might lazily make up my mind, in a kind of 
sporting interest, to count them as they pass ; to let 
twenty go in safety, and smash the twenty-first, lov- 
ing not, hating not, just choosing so. When I feel 
like it, I help some creatures; if in another mood, I 
torment others ; that's the way God treats us, that's 
the way I would act if I were God. 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 329 

As Caliban's theology has much of the human in 
it, so his practical reasoning is decidedly human in 
its superstition. Granted that we are in the hands 
of a childish and capricious God, who amuses him- 
self with torturing us, who laughs at our faces dis- 
torted with pain, what is the thing we ought to do ? 
How shall we best manage? Caliban's advice is 
clear: don't let Him notice you: don't get promi- 
nent : above all, never boast of your good fortune, 
for that will surely draw God's attention, and He 
will put you where you belong. This superstition, 
that God is against us, is deep-seated in human na- 
ture, as the universal practice of "touching wood" 
sufficiently demonstrates. If a man says, *T haven't 
had a cold this winter," his friends will advise him 
to touch wood ; and if he wakes up the next morning 
snuffling, he will probably soliloquise, "What a fool 
I was ! Why couldn't I keep still ? Why did I have 
to mention it ? Now see what I've got !" 

Caliban disagreed with his mother Sycorax on 
one important point. She believed in the future 
life. Caliban says such a belief is absurd. There 
can be nothing worse than this life. Its good mo- 
ments are simply devices of God to strengthen us so 
that He can torture us again, just as in the good old 



330 BROWNING 

times the executioners gave the sufferers they were 
tormenting some powerful stimulant, so that they 
might return to consciousness and suffer ; for noth- 
ing cheated the spectators worse than to have the 
victim die during the early stages of the torture. 
The object was to keep the wretch alive as long as 
possible. Thus in this life we have moments of 
comparative ease and rest, wherein we recuperate a 
little, just as the cat lets the mouse recover strength 
enough to imagine he is going to get away. 

Caliban is of course an absolute and convinced 
pessimist. A malevolent giant is not so bad a God 
as an insane child. And Browning means that pes- 
simism is what we should naturally expect from so 
rudimentary an intellect as Caliban's, which judges 
the whole order of the universe from proximate and 
superficial evidences. 

The close of the poem is a good commentary on 
some human ideas of what kind of service is pleas- 
ing to God. Poor Caliban ! he had saved up some 
quails, meaning to have a delicious meal. But in his 
fear he cries to God, I will let them fly, if you will 
only spare me this time ! I will not eat whelks for a 
month, I will eat no chocolates during Lent, any- 
thing to please God ! 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 331 

CALIBAN UPON SETEBOS; OR, NATURAL 
THEOLOGY IN THE ISLAND 

1864 

"Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as 
thyself." 

['Will sprawl, now that the heat of day is best, 
Flat on his belly in the pit's much mire, 
With elbows wide, fists clenched to prop his chin. 
And, while he kicks both feet in the cool slush, 
And feels about his spine small eft-things course, 
Run in and out each arm, and make him laugh : 
And while above his head a pompion-plant. 
Coating the cave-top as a brow its eye, 
Creeps down to touch and tickle hair and beard, 
And now a flower drops with a bee inside, 
And now a fruit to snap at, catch and crunch, — 
He looks out o'er yon sea which sunbeams cross 
And recross till they weave a spider-web 
(Meshes of fire, some great fish breaks at times) 
And talks to his own self, howe'er he please. 
Touching that other, whom his dam called God. 
Because to talk about Him, vexes — ha, 
Could He but know ! and time to vex is now, 
When talk is safer than in winter-time. 
Moreover Prosper and Miranda sleep 
In confidence he drudges at their task, 
And it is good to cheat the pair, and gibe, 
Letting the rank tongue blossom into speech.] 

Setebos, Setebos, and Setebos 1 

Thinketh, He dwelleth i' the cold o* the moon. 

'Thinketh He made it, with the sun to match. 
But not the stars ; the stars came otherwise ; 
Only made clouds, winds, meteors, such as that : 



ZZ2 BROWNING 

Also this isle, what lives and grows thereon, 

And snaky sea which rounds and ends the same. 

*Thinketh, it came of being Jll at ease : 

He hated that He cannot change His cold, 

Nor cure its ache. 'Hath spied an icy fish 

That longed to 'scape the rock-stream where she lived, 

And thaw herself within the lukewarm brine 

O* the lazy sea her stream thrusts far amid, 

A crystal spike 'twixt two warm walls of wave; 

Only, she ever sickened, found repulse 

At the other kind of water, not her life, 

(Green-dense and dim-delicious, bred o* the sun) 

Flounced back from bliss she was not born to breathe. 

And in her old bounds buried her despair, 

Hating and loving warmth alike : so He. 

'Thinketh, He made thereat the sun, this isle, 

Trees and the fowls here, beast and creeping thing. 

Yon otter, sleek-wet, black, lithe as a leech ; 

Yon auk, one fire-eye in a ball of foam. 

That floats and feeds ; a certain badger brown 

He hath watched hunt with that slant white-wedge eye 

By moonlight ; and the pie with the long tongue 

That pricks deep into oakwarts for a worm, 

And says a plain word when she finds her prize, 

But will not eat the ants ; the ants themselves 

That build a wall of seeds and settled stalks 

About their hole — He made all these and more. 

Made all we see, and us, in spite : how else? 

He could not, Himself, make a second self 

To be His mate ; as well have made Himself : 

He would not make what he mislikes or slights. 

An eyesore to Him, or not worth His pains : 

But did, in envy, listlessness or sport, 

Make what Himself would fain, in a manner, be — 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 333 

Weaker in most points, stronger in a few, 

Worthy, and yet mere playthings all the while, 

Things He admires and mocks too, — that is it. 

Because, so brave, so better though they be, 

It nothing skills if He begin to plague. 

Look now, I melt a gourd-fruit into mash, 

Add honeycomb and pods, I have perceived, 

Which bite like finches when they bill and kiss, — 

Then, when froth rises bladdery, drink up all, 

Quick, quick, till maggots scamper through my brain; 

Last, throw me on my back i' the seeded thyme. 

And wanton, wishing I were born a bird. 

Put case, unable to be what I wish, 

I yet could make a live bird out of clay : 

Would not I take clay, pinch my Caliban 

Able to fly ? — for, there, see, he hath wings. 

And great comb like the hoopoe's to admire. 

And there, a sting to do his foes offence. 

There, and I will that he begin to live, 

Fly to yon rock-top, nip me off the horns 

Of grigs high up that make the merry din. 

Saucy through their veined wings, and mind me not. 

In which feat, if his leg snapped, brittle clay, 

And he lay stupid-like, — why, I should laugh ; 

And if he, spying me, should fall to weep, 

Beseech me to be good, repair his wrong. 

Bid his poor leg smart less or grow again, — 

Well, as the chance were, this might take or else 

Not take my fancy : I might hear his cry. 

And give the mankin three sound legs for one. 

Or pluck the other off, leave him like an egg. 

And lessoned he was mine and merely clay. 

Were this no pleasure, lying in the thyme. 

Drinking the mash, with brain become alive. 

Making and marring clay at will ? So He. 



334 BROWNING 

*Thinketh, such shows nor right nor wrong in Him, 
Nor kind, nor cruel : He is strong and Lord. 
*Am strong myself compared to yonder crabs 
That march now from the mountain to the sea ; 
'Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first, 
Loving not, hating not, just choosing so. 
*Say, the first straggler that boasts purple spots 
Shall join the file, one pincer twisted off; 
'Say, this bruised fellow shall receive a worm, 
And two worms he whose nippers end in red ; 
As it likes me each time, I do : so He. 

Well then, *supposeth He is good i' the main, 

Placable if His mind and ways were guessed, 

But rougher than His handiwork, be sure I 

Oh, He hath made things worthier than Himself, 

And envieth that, so helped, such things do more 

Than He who made them ! What consoles but this? 

That they, unless through Him, do nought at all. 

And must submit : what other use in things ? 

*Hath cut a pipe of pithless elder-joint 

That, blown through, gives exact the scream o' the jay 

When from her wing you twitch the feathers blue : 

Sound this, and little birds that hate the jay 

Flock within stone's throw, glad their foe is hurt : 

Put case such pipe could prattle and boast forsooth 

*T catch the birds, I am the crafty thing, 

"I make the cry my maker cannot make 

"With his great round mouth ; he must blow through mine V 

Would not I smash it with my foot ? So He. 

But wherefore rough, why cold and ill at ease ? 
Aha, that is a question 1 Ask, for that. 
What knows, — the something over Setebos 
.That made Him, or He, may be, found and fought, 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 335 

Worsted, drove off and did to nothing, perchance. 

There may be something quiet o'er His head, 

Out of His reach, that feels nor joy nor grief. 

Since both derive from weakness in some way. 

I joy because the quails come ; would not joy 

Could I bring quails here when I have a mind : 

This Quiet, all it hath a mind to, doth. 

*Esteemeth stars the outposts of its couch. 

But never spends much thought nor care that way. 

It may look up, work up, — the worse for those 

It works on ! 'Careth but for Setebos 

The many-handed as a cuttle-fish. 

Who, making Himself feared through what He does, 

Looks up, first, and perceives he cannot soar 

To what is quiet and hath happy Hfe; 

Next looks down here, and out of very spite 

Makes this a bauble-world to ape yon real. 

These good things to match those as hips do grapes. 

*Tis solace making baubles, ay, and sport. 

Himself peeped late, eyed Prosper at his books 

Careless and lofty, lord now of the isle: 

Vexed, 'stitched a book of broad leaves, arrow-shaped, 

Wrote thereon, he knows what, prodigious words ; 

Has peeled a wand and called it by a name ; 

Weareth at whiles for an enchanter's robe 

The eyed skin of a supple oncelot ; 

And hath an ounce sleeker than youngling mole, 

A four-legged serpent he makes cower and couch, 

Now snarl, now hold its breath and mind his eye. 

And saith she is Miranda and my wife : 

*Keeps for his Ariel a tall pouch-bill crane 

He bids go wade for fish and straight disgorge ; 

Also a sea-beast, lumpish, which he snared. 

Blinded the eyes of, and brought somewhat tame, 

And split its toe-webs, and now pens the drudge 



336 BROWNING 

In a hole o* the rock and calls him Caliban ; 
A bitter heart that bides its time and bites. 
*Plays thus at being Prosper in a way, 
Taketh his mirth with make-believes : so He. 

His dam held that the Quiet made all things 

Which Setebos vexed only : 'holds not so. 

Who made them weak, meant weakness He might vex. 

Had He meant other, while His hand was in. 

Why not make horny eyes no thorn could prick, 

Or plate my scalp with bone against the snow, 

Or overscale my flesh 'neath joint and joint. 

Like an ore's armour? Ay, — so spoil His sport f 

He is the One now : only He doth all. 

'Saith, He may hke, perchance, what profits Him. 

Ay, himself loves what does him good; but why? 

*Gets good no otherwise. This blinded beast 

Loves whoso places flesh-meat on his nose. 

But, had he eyes, would want no help, but hate 

Or love, just as it liked him : He hath eyes. 

Also it pleaseth Setebos to work. 

Use all His hands, and exercise much craft. 

By no means for the love of what is worked. 

'Tasteth, himself, no finer good i' the world 

When all goes right, in this safe summer-time, 

And he wants little, hungers, aches not much, 

Than trying what to do with wit and strength. 

'Falls to make something: 'piled yon pile of turfs. 

And squared and stuck there squares of soft white chalk. 

And, with a fish-tooth, scratched a moon on each. 

And set up endwise certain spikes of tree, 

And crowned the whole with a sloth's skull a-top. 

Found dead i' the woods, too hard for one to kill. 

No use at all i' the work, for work's sole sake ; 

'Shall some day knock it down again : so He. 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 33Z 

'Saith He is terrible : watch His feats in proof ! 

One hurricane will spoil six good months* hope. 

He hath a spite against me, that I know, 

Just as He favours Prosper, who knows why? 

So it is, all the same, as well I find. 

'Wove wattles half the winter, fenced them firm 

With stone and stake to stop she-tortoises 

Crawling to lay their eggs here : well, one wave, 

Feeling the foot of Him upon its neck. 

Gaped as a snake does, lolled out its large tongue, 

And licked the whole labour flat : so much for spite. 

*Saw a ball flame down late (yonder it lies) 

Where, half an hour before, I slept i' the shade : 

Often they scatter sparkles : there is force ! 

'Dug up a newt He may have envied once 

And turned to stone, shut up inside a stone. 

Please Him and hinder this? — What Prosper does? 

Aha, if He would tell me how ! Not He ! 

There is the sport : discover how or die ! 

All need not die, for of the things o' the isle 

Some flee afar, some dive, some run up trees ; 

Those at His mercy, — why, they please Him most 

When . . . when . . . well, never try the same way twice I 

Repeat what act has pleased, He may grow wroth. 

You must not know His ways, and play Him off. 

Sure of the issue. 'Doth the like himself : 

*Spareth a squirrel that it nothing fears 

But steals the nut from underneath my thumb, 

And when I threat, bites stoutly in defence : 

'Spareth an urchin that contrariwise, 

Curls up into a ball, pretending death 

For fright at my approach : the two ways please. 

But what would move my choler more than this, 

That either creature counted on its life 

To-morrow and next day and all days to come, 



338 BROWNING 

Saying, forsooth, in the inmost of its heart, 

"Because he did so yesterday with me, 

"And otherwise with such another brute, 

"So must he do henceforth and always." — Ay? 

Would teach the reasoning couple what "must" means I 

'Doth as he likes, or wherefore Lord? So He. 

*Conceiveth all things will continue thus. 

And we shall have to live in fear of Him 

So long as He lives, keeps His strength : no change, 

If He have done His best, make no new world 

To please Him more, so leave off watching this, — 

If He surprise not even the Quiet's self 

Some strange day, — or, suppose, grow into it 

As grubs grow butterflies : else, here are we, 

And there is He, and nowhere help at all. 

'Believeth with the life, the pain shall stop. 
His dam held different, that after death 
He both plagued enemies and feasted friends : 
Idly! He doth His worst in this our life, 
Giving just respite lest we die through pain. 
Saving last pain for worst, — with which, an end. 
Meanwhile, the best way to escape His ire 
Is, not to seem too happy. 'Sees, himself, 
Yonder two flies, with purple films and pink. 
Bask on the pompion-bell above : kills both. 
'Sees two black painful beetles roll their ball 
On head and tail as if to save their lives : 
Moves them the stick away they strive to clear. 

Even so, 'would have Him misconceive, suppose 
This Caliban strives hard and ails no less, 
And always, above all else, envies Him ; 
Wherefore he mainly dances on dark nights, 
Moans in the sun, gets under holes to laugh, 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 339 

And never speaks his mind save housed as now : 
Outside, *groans, curses. If He caught me here, 
O'erheard this speech, and asked "What chucklest at ?" 
'Would, to appease Him, cut a finger off. 
Or of my three kid yearlings burn the best, 
Or let the toothsome apples rot on tree, 
Or push my tame beast for the ore to taste : 
While myself lit a fire, and made a song 
And sung it, "What I hate, be consecrate 
"To celebrate Thee and Thy state, no mate 
"For Thee; what see for envy in poor me?" 
Hoping the while, since evils sometimes mend, 
Warts rub away and sores are cured with slime. 
That some strange day, will either the Quiet catch 
And conquer Setebos, or likelier He 
Decrepit may doze, doze, as good as die. 



[What, what? A curtain o'er the world at oncel 

Crickets stop hissing ; not a bird — or, yes. 

There scuds His raven that has told Him all ! 

It was fool's play, this prattling ! Ha ! The wind 

Shoulders the pillared dust, death's house o' the move, 

And fast invading fires begin ! White blaze — 

A tree's head snaps — and there, there, there, there, there, 

His thunder follows 1 Fool to gibe at Him I 

Lo I 'Lieth flat and loveth Setebos ! 

'Maketh his teeth meet through his upper lip. 

Will let those quails fly, will not eat this month 

One little mess of whelks, so he may 'scape!] 

In the great poem Rahhi Ben Ezra, a quite differ- 
ent reason from that of CaHban's is suggested for 
the drawbacks and sufferings of life. They are a 



340 BROWNING 

part of the divine machinery employed by infinite 
wisdom to further human development, to make us 
ultimately fit to see His face. There can be no true 
progress without obstacles: no enjoyment without 
its opposite : no vacation without duties : no virtue 
without sin. 

The second line of the poem is startling in its di- 
rect contradiction of the language and lamentation 
of conventional poetry. Regret for lost youth and 
terror before old age are stock ideas in poetry, and 
in human meditation ; but here we are invited to look 
forward to old age as the best time of life. Not to 
grow old gracefully, in resignation, but to grow old 
eagerly, in triumph — this is the Rabbi's suggestion. 
There is not the slightest doubt that he is right, pro- 
vided one lives a mental, rather than an animal ex- 
istence. A short time ago, Mr. Joseph H. Choate 
was addressing a large company in New York: he 
said, "Unquestionably the best period of life is the 
time between seventy and eighty years of age : and I 
advise you all to hurry up and get there as soon as 
you can." 

God loveth whom He chasteneth. Our doubts and 
fears, our sorrows and pains, are spurs, stimulants 
to advance ; rejoice that we have them, for they are 
proofs that we are alive and moving ! 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 341 

In the seventh stanza conies an audacious but 
cheering thought. Many thinkers regard the deepest 
sorrow of Hfe as rising from the disparity between 
our ideals and our achievement; Schiller, in his 
poem, Das Ideal und das Leben, has expressed this 
cause of woe in beautiful language. Browning says 
boldly, 

What I aspired to be, 

And was not, comforts me: 

This paradox, which comforts while it mocks, 
means, "My achievements are ridiculously small in 
comparison with my hopes, my ambitions, my 
dreams : thank God for all this ! Thank God I was 
not content with low aims, thank God I had my 
aspirations and have them still : they point to future 
development." 

In the twenty-third, twenty- fourth and twenty^ 
fifth stanzas. Browning suddenly returns to this 
idea : in the appraisement of the human soul, efforts, 
which if unsuccessful, count for nothing in worldly 
estimation, pay an enormous ultimate dividend, and 
must therefore be rated high. The reason why the 
world counts only things done and not things at- 
tempted, is because the world's standards are too 
coarse : they are adapted only for gross and obvious 
results. You can not weigh diamonds on hay scales : 



342 BROWNING 

the indicator would show precisely nothing. And 
yet one diamond, too fine for these huge scales, 
might be of more value than thousands of tons of 
hay. 

From the twenty-sixth stanza to the end, Brown- 
ing takes up the figure of the Potter, the Wheel, and 
the Clay. I think that he was drawn to use this 
metaphor, not from Scripture, but as a protest 
against the use of it in Fitzgerald's Omar Khayyam. 
Fitzgerald published his translation in 1859; and al- 
though it attracted no public attention, it is certainly 
possible that Browning saw it. He would have en- 
joyed its melodious beauty, but the philosophy of 
the poem would have been to him detestable and 
abhorrent. Much is made there of the Potter, mean- 
ing blind destiny : and the moral is, "Drink ! the Past 
gone, seize To-day!" Browning explicitly rejects 
and scorns this teaching: it is propounded by fools 
for the benefit of other fools. 

Fool 1 all that is, at all, 

Lasts ever, past recall ; 
Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure : 

What entered into thee, 

That was, is, and shall be : 
Time's wheel runs back or stops : Potter and clay endure. 

In Browning's metaphor, the Potter is God : the 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 343 

Wheel is the whirhng course of Hfe's experiences; 
the Clay is man. God holds us on the wheel to turn 
us into the proper shape. Owing to our flaws, the 
strain is sometimes too great, and some of us are 
warped and twisted by this stern discipline: other 
characters, made of better material, constantly grow 
more beautiful and more serviceable under the treat- 
ment. Browning had suffered the greatest sorrow 
of his life when he wrote this poem, and yet he had 
faith enough to say in the thirty-first stanza, that 
not even while the whirl was worst, did he, bound 
dizzily to the terrible wheel of life, once lose his be- 
lief that he was in God's hands and that the deep cut- 
tings were for his ultimate benefit. 

In the making of a cup, the Potter engraved 
around the base lovely images of youth and pleasure, 
and near the rim skulls and signs of death : but what 
is a cup for ? It is meant for the Master's lips. The 
nearer therefore we approach to death, the nearer 
we are to God's presence, who is making us fit to 
slake His thirst. Finished at last, we are done for- 
ever with life's wheel: we come to the banquet, the 
festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal, the 
glorious appearance of the Master. 



344 BROWNING 

RABBI BEN EZRA 

1864 

I 

Grow old along with me I 

The best is yet to be, 
The last of life, for which the first was made: 

Our times are in His hand 

Who saith "A whole I planned, 
"Youth shows but half ; trust God : see all nor be afraid I" 

II 

Not that, amassing flowers, 
Youth sighed "Which rose make ours, 
"Which lily leave and then as best recall ?" 
Not that, admiring stars, 
It yearned "Nor Jove, nor Mars ; 
"Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them 
all!" 

Ill 

Not for such hopes and fears 

Annulling youth's brief years. 
Do I remonstrate : folly wide the mark ! 

Rather I prize the doubt 

Low kinds exist without, 
Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark. 

IV 

Poor vaunt of life indeed, 

Were man but formed to feed 
On joy, to solely seek and find and feast: 

Such feasting ended, then 

As sure an end to men ; 
Irks care the crop- full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed 
beast? 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 345 



Rejoice we are allied 

To That which doth provide 
And not partake, effect and not receive ! 

A spark disturbs our clod ; 

Nearer we hold of God 
Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe. 

VI 

Then, welcome each rebuff 

That turns earth's smoothness rough. 
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go ! 

Be our joys three-parts pain ! 

Strive, and hold cheap the strain ; 
Learn, nor account the pang ; dare, never grudge the throe I 

VII 

For thence, — a paradox 

Which comforts while it mocks, — 
Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail: 

What I aspired to be. 

And was not, comforts me : 
A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the scale. 

VIII 

What is he but a brute 

Whose flesh has soul to suit. 
Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play? 

To man, propose this test — 

Thy body at its best. 
How far can that project thy soul on its lone way? 

IX 

Yet gifts should prove their use: 
I own the Past profuse 
Of power each side, perfection every turn : 



346 BROWNING 

Eyes, ears took in their dole, 
Brain treasured up the whole; 
Should not the heart beat once "How good to live and learn ?" 

X 

Not once beat "Praise be Thine f 

"I see the whole design, 
"I, who saw power, see now love perfect too: 

"Perfect I call Thy plan : 

"Thanks that I was a man 1 
"Maker, remake, complete, — I trust what Thou shalt do!" 

XI 

For pleasant is this flesh ; 

Our soul, in its rose-mesh 
Pulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest ; 

Would we some prize might hold 

To match those manifold 
Possessions of the brute, — gain most, as we did best I 

XII 

Let us not always say 
"Spite of this flesh to-day 
"I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole 1" 
As the bird wings and sings. 
Let us cry "All good things 
"Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps 
soul !" 

XIII 

Therefore I summon age 

To grant youth's heritage. 
Life's struggle having so far reached its term : 

Thence shall I pass, approved 

A man, for aye removed 
From the developed brute ; a god though in the germ. 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 347, 

XIV 

And I shall thereupon 

Take rest, ere I be gone 
Once more on my adventure brave and new : 

Fearless and unperplexed, 

When I wage battle next, 
What weapons to select, what armour to indue. 

XV 

Youth ended, I shall try 

My gain or loss thereby; 
Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold : 

And I shall weigh the same. 

Give Hfe its praise or blame: 
Young, all lay in dispute ; I shall know, being old. 

XVI 

For note, when evening shuts, 

A certain moment cuts 
The deed off, calls the glory from the grey : 

A whisper from the west 

Shoots — "Add this to the rest, 
"Take it and try its worth : here dies another day." 

XVII 

So, still within this life, 

Though lifted o'er its strife. 
Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last, 

"This rage was right i' the main, 

"That acquiescence vain : 
"The Future I may face now I have proved the Past,** 

XVIII 

For more is not reserved 
To man, with soul just nerved 
To act to-morrow what he learns to-day : 



348 BROWNING 

Here, work enough to watch 
The Master work, and catch 
Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play. 

XIX 

As it was better, youth 

Should strive, through acts uncouth. 
Toward making, than repose on aught found made : 

So, better, age, exempt 

From strife, should know, than tempt 
Further, Thou waitedest age : wait death nor be afraid I 

XX 

Enough now, if the Right 

And Good and Infinite 
Be named here, as thou callest thy hand thine own, 

With knowledge absolute. 

Subject to no dispute 
From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel alone. 

XXI 

Be there, for once and all, 

Severed great minds from small. 
Announced to each his station in the Past ! 

Was I, the world arraigned, 

Were they, my soul disdained. 
Right ? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last I 

XXII 

Now, who shall arbitrate ? 

Ten men love what I hate, 
Shun what I follow, slight what I receive ; 

Ten, who in ears and eyes 

Match me : we all surmise. 
They this thing, and I that: whom shall my soul believe? 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 349 

XXIII 

Not on the vulgar mass 

Called "work," must sentence pass, 
Things done, that took the eye and had the price ; 

O'er which, from level stand, 

The low world laid its hand, 
Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice : 

XXIV 

But all, the world's coarse thumb 

And finger failed to plumb. 
So passed in making up the main account ; 

All instincts immature, 

All purposes unsure, 
That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount : 

XXV 

Thoughts hardly to be packed 

Into a narrow act, 
Fancies that broke through language and escaped ; 

All I could ever be. 

All, men ignored in me. 
This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped. 

XXVI 

Ay, note that Potter's wheel, 

That metaphor ! and feel 
Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay, — ■ 

Thou, to whom fools propound, 

When the wine makes its round, 
"Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize to-day!" 

XXVII 
Fool ! All that is, at all, 
Lasts ever, past recall ; 
Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure : 



350 BROWNING 

What entered into thee, 
That was, is, and shall be : 
Time's wheel runs back or stops : Potter and clay endure 

XXVIII 

He fixed thee mid this dance 

Of plastic circumstance, 
This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest : 

Machinery just meant 

To give thy soul its bent. 
Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed. 

XXIX 

What though the earlier grooves 

Which ran the laughing loves 
Around thy base, no longer pause and press ? 

What though, about thy rim. 

Scull-things in order grim 
Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress ? 

XXX 

Look not thou down but up I 
To uses of a cup, 
The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal, 
The new wine's foaming flow, 
The Master's lips a-glow I 
Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what need'st thou with earth's 
wheel ? 

XXXI 

But I need, now as then, 

Thee, God, who mouldest men ; 
And since, not even while the whirl was worst, 

Did I, — to the wheel of life 

With shapes and colours rife. 
Bound dizzily, — mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst : 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 351 

XXXII 

So, take and use Thy work : 

Amend what flaws may lurk, 
What strain o* the stuff, what warpings past the aim I 

My times be in Thy hand ! 

Perfect the cup as planned ! 
Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same ! 

Browning wrote four remarkable poems dealing 
with music : A Toccata of Galuppi's, Master Hugues 
of Saxe-Gotha, Aht Vogler, and Charles Avison. In 
Aht Vogler the miracle of extemporisation has just 
been accomplished. The musician sits at the keys, 
tears running down his face : tears of weakness, be- 
cause of the storm of divine inspiration that has 
passed through him: tears of sorrow, because he 
never can recapture the fine, careless rapture of his 
unpremeditated music: tears of joy, because he 
knows that on this particular day he has been the 
channel chosen by the Infinite God. 

If he had only been an architect, his dream would 
have remained in a permanent form. The armies of 
workmen would have done his will, and the world 
would have admired it for ages. If he had only 
been a poet or a painter, his inspiration would have 
taken the form of fixed type or enduring shape arid 
color: but in the instance of music, the armies of 
thoughts that have worked together in absolute har- 



352 BROWNING 

mony to elevate the noble building of sound, which 
has risen like an exhalation, have vanished together 
with the structure they animated. It has gone like 
the wonderful beauty of some fantastic cloud. 

His sorrow at this particular irreparable loss gives 
way to rapture as he reflects on the source whence 
came the inspiration. He could not possibly have 
constructed such wonderful music: it was the God 
welling up within him : for this past hour divine in- 
spiration has spoken through him. He has had one 
glimpse at the Celestial Radiance. How can he now 
think that the same God who expanded his heart 
lacks the power to fill it ? The Source from whence 
this river came must be inexhaustible, and it was 
vouchsafed to him to feel for a short time its infinite 
richness. The broken arcs on earth are the earnest 
of the perfect round in heaven. 

Abt Vogler says that the philosophers may each 
make his guess at the meaning of this earthly scheme 
of weal and woe : but the musicians, the musicians 
who have felt in their own bosoms the presence of 
the Divine Power and heard its marvellous voice, — 
why, the philosophers may reason and welcome : 'tis 
we musicians know ! 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 353 



ABT VOGLER 

(after he has been extemporising upon the musical 
instrument of his invention) 



1864 



Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I build, 

Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work, 
Claiming each slave of the sound, at a touch, as when Solomon 
willed 
Armies of angels that soar, legions of demons that lurk, 
Man, brute, reptile, fly, — alien of end and of aim. 
Adverse, each from the other heaven-high, hell-deep re- 
moved, — 
Should rush into sight at once as he named the ineffable Name, 
And pile him a palace straight, to pleasure the princess he 
loved 1 

II 

Would it might tarry like his, the beautiful building of mine, 
This which my keys in a crowd pressed and importuned to 
raise ! 
Ah, one and all, how they helped, would dispart now and now 
combine, 
Zealous to hasten the work, heighten their master his praise ! 
And one would bury his brow with a blind plunge down to 
hell, 
Burrow awhile and build, broad on the roots of things, 
Then up again swim into sight, having based me my palace 
well. 
Founded it, fearless of flame, flat on the nether springs. 



354 BROWNING 

III 

And another would mount and march, like the excellent 
minion he was, 
Ay, another and yet another, one crowd but with many a 
crest. 
Raising my rampired walls of gold as transparent as glass, 

Eager to do and die, yield each his place to the rest : 
For higher still and higher (as a runner tips with fire, 
When a great illumination surprises a festal night — 
Outlined round and round Rome's dome from space to spire) 
Up, the pinnacled glory reached, and the pride of my soul 
was in sight. 

IV 

In sight? Not half I for it seemed, it was certain, to match 
man's birth. 
Nature in turn conceived, obeying an impulse as I ; 
And the emulous heaven yearned down, made effort to reach 
the earth, 
As the earth had done her best, in my passion, to scale the 
sky: 
Novel splendors burst forth, grew familiar and dwelt with 
mine, 
Not a point nor peak but found and fixed its wandering 
star; 
Meteor-moons, balls of blaze : and they did not pale nor pine. 
For earth had attained to heaven, there was no more near 
nor far. 

V 

Nay more ; for there wanted not who walked In the glare and 

glow. 

Presences plain in the place ; or, fresh from the Protoplast, 

Furnished for ages to come, when a kindlier wind should blow, 

Lured now to begin and live, in a house to their liking at 

last; 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 355 

Pr else the wonderful Dead who have passed through the body 
and gone, 
But were back once more to breathe in an old world worth 
their new : 
What never had been, was now ; what was, as it shall be anon ; 
And what is, — shall I say, matched both? for I was made 
perfect too. 

VI 

All through my keys that gave their sounds to a wish of my 
soul, 
All through my soul that praised as its wish flowed visibly 
forth, 
/Ml through music and me ! For think, had I painted the whole, 
Why, there it had stood, to see, nor the process so wonder- 
worth : 
H»d I written the same, made verse — still, effect proceeds 
from cause. 
Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is 
told; 
It is all triumphant art, but art in obedience to laws, 
Painter and poet are proud in the artist-list enrolled : — 



VII 



But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can, 

Existent behind all laws, that made them and, lo, they are ! 
And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man, 

That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but 
a star. 
Consider it well : each tone of our scale in itself is naught : 

It is everywhere in the world — loud, soft, and all is said : 
Give it to me to use ! I mix it with two in my thought : 

And there I Ye have heard and seen : consider and bow the 
head! 



356 BROWNING 

VIII 

Well, it is gone at last, the palace of music I reared ; 

Gonel and the good tears start, the praises that come too 
slow; 
For one is assured at first, one scarce can say that he feared, 
That he even gave it a thought, the gone thing was to go. 
Never to be again ! But many more of the kind 

As good, nay, better perchance: is this your comfort to me? 
To me, who must be saved because I cling with my mind 
To the same, same self, same love, same God : ay, what was, 
shall be. 

IX 

Therefore to whom turn I but to thee, the ineffable Name . 

Builder and maker, thou, of houses not made with hands I 
What, have fear of change from thee who art ever the same? 
Doubt that thy power can fill the heart that thy power ex- 
pands? 
There shall never be one lost good ! What was, shall live as 
before; 
The evil is null, is naught, is silence implying sound ; 
What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good 
more ; 
On the earth the broken arcs ; in the heaven a perfect round. 



All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist; 

Not its semblance, but itself ; no beauty, nor good, nor power 
Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist 

When eternity affirms the conception of an hour. 
The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard. 

The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky. 
Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard ; 

Enough that he heard it once : we shall hear it by and by. 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 357 

XI 

And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence 

For the fuhiess of the days? Have we withered or agonized? 
Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue 
thence ? 

Why rushed the discords in, but that harmony should be 
prized ? 
Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear, 

Each sufferer says his say, his scheme of the weal and woe: 
But God has a few of us whom he whispers in the ear; 

The rest may reason and welcome : 'tis we musicians know. 

XII 

Well, it is earth with me ; silence resumes her reign : 

I will be patient and proud, and soberly acquiesce. 
Give me the keys. I feel for the common chord again, 

Sliding by semitones till I sink to the minor, — yes. 
And I blunt it into a ninth, and I stand on alien ground, 

Surveying awhile the heights I rolled from into the deep ; 
Which, hark, I have dared and done, for my resting-place is 
found. 

The C Major of this life: so, now I will try to sleep. 

In the autumn following his wife's death Brown- 
ing wrote the poem Prospice, which title means 
Look Forward! This is the most original poem on 
death in English Literature. It shows that Brown- 
ing strictly and consistently followed the moral ap- 
pended to The Glove — Venienti occurrite morho, 
run to meet approaching disaster ! 

Although the prayer-book expresses the wish that 



358 BROWNING 

the Good Lord will deliver us from battle, murder, 
and sudden death, that hope was founded on the old 
superstition that it was more important how a man 
died than how he lived. If a man who had lived a 
righteous, sober and godly life died while playing 
cards or in innocent laughter, with no opportunity 
for the ministrations of a priest, his chances for the 
next world were thought to be slim. On the other 
hand, a damnable scoundrel on the scaffold, with the 
clergyman's assurances assented to, was supposed to 
be jerked into heaven. This view of life and death 
was firmly held even by so sincere and profound a 
thinker as Hamlet: which explains his anguish at 
the fate of his father killed in his sleep, and his own 
refusal to slay the villain Claudius at prayer. 

It is probable that thousands of worshippers who 
now devoutly pray to be delivered from sudden 
death, would really prefer that exit to any other. 
The reason is clear enough : it is to avoid the pain of 
slow dissolution, the sufferings of the death-bed, and 
the horrible fear of the dark. Now Browning boldly 
asks that he may be spared nothing of all these grim 
terrors. True to his conception of a poet, as a man 
who should understand all human experiences, he 
hopes that he may pass conscious and aware through 
the wonderful experience of dying. Most sick folk 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 359 

become unconscious hours before death and slip 
over the line in total coma : Browning wants to stay 
awake. 

I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore, 
And bade me creep past. 

I want to taste it all, the physical suffering, the fear 
of the abyss : I want to hear the raving of the fiend- 
voices, to be in the very thick of the fight. He adds 
the splendid line, 

For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave. 

Brave hearts turn defeat into victory. 

Browning died twenty-eight years after he wrote 
this poem, and his prayer was granted. He was 
conscious almost up to the last second, and fully 
aware of the nearness of death. Even the manner 
of death, as described in the first line of the poem, 
came to be his own experience : for he died of bron- 
chitis. 

PROSPICE 

1864 

Fear death ? — to feel the fog in my throat. 

The mist in my face, 
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote 

I am nearing the place, 
The power of the night, the press of the storm, 

The post of the foe ; 
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form. 



360 BROWNING 

Yet the strong man must go : 
For the journey Is done and the summit attained, 

And the barriers fall, 
Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained, 

The reward of it all. 
I was ever a fighter, so — one fight more. 

The best and the last ! 
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore, 

And bade me creep past. 
No ! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers 

The heroes of old, 
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears 

Of pain, darkness and cold. 
For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave, 

The black minute's at end. 
And the elements* rage, the fiend-voices that rave, 

Shall dwindle, shall blend, 
Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain, 

Then a light, then thy breast, 
O thou soul of my soul 1 I shall clasp thee again. 

And with God be the rest ! 

One can hardly repress a smile at Browning's 
thorough-going optimism, when he reads the poem, 
Apparent Failure, and then glances back at the title. 
'Apparent failure ! Of all the defeated sons of earth, 
the nameless suicides whose wretched bodies are 
taken to the public morgue, ought surely, we should 
imagine, to be classed as absolute failures. But 
Browning does not think so. It is possible, he says, 
that the reason why these poor outcasts abandoned 
life, was because their aspirations were so tremen- 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 361 

dously high that dull reality overpowered their 
spirits. Goodness is better than badness : meekness 
better than ferocity: calm sense than mad ravings. 
But, after all, these poor fellows were God's crea- 
tures. His sun will eventually pierce the darkest 
cloud earth can stretch. Somewhere, after many 
ages in the next life, these men will develop into 
something better under the sunshine of the smile of 
God. 

APPARENT FAILURE 

1864 

"We shall soon lose a celebrated building." 

Paris Newspaper. 
I 

No, for ril save it I Seven years since, 

I passed through Paris, stopped a day 
To see the baptism of your Prince ; 

Saw, made my bow, and went my way : 
Walking the heat and headache off, 

I took the Seine-side, you surmise. 
Thought of the Congress, Gortschakoff, 

Cavour's appeal and Buol's replies, 
So sauntered till — what met my eyes? 

II 

Only the Doric little Morgue ! 

The dead-house where you show your drowned : 
Petrarch's Vaucluse makes proud the Sorgue, 

Your Morgue has made the Seine renowned. 
One pays one's debt in such a case ; 



362 BROWNING 

I plucked up heart and entered, — stalked, 
Keeping a tolerable face 

Compared with some whose cheeks were chalked 
Let them ! No Briton's to be baulked ! 



Ill 



First came the silent gazers ; next, 

A screen of glass, we're thankful for ; 
Last, the sight's self, the sermon's text, 

The three men who did most abhor 
Their life in Paris yesterday, 

So killed themselves : and now, enthroned 
Each on his copper couch, they lay 

Fronting me, waiting to be owned. 
I thought, and think, their sin's atoned. 



IV 



Poor men, God made, and all for that I 

The reverence struck me ; o'er each head 
Religiously was hung its hat, 

Each coat dripped by the owner's bed, 
Sacred from touch : each had his berth, 

His bounds, his proper place of rest, 
Who last night tenanted on earth 

Some arch, where twelve such slept abreast,- 
Unless the plain asphalte seemed best. 



How did it happen, my poor boy? 

You wanted to be Buonaparte 
And have the Tuileries for toy, 

And could not, so it broke your heart? 
You, old one by his side, I judge, 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 363 

Were, red as blood, a socialist, 
A leveller ! Does the Empire grudge 

You've gained what no Republic missed? 
Be quiet, and unclench your fist ! 

VI 

And this — why, he was red in vain, 

Or black, — poor fellow that is blue I 
What fancy was it turned your brain? 

Oh, women were the prize for you ! 
Money gets women, cards and dice 

Get money, and ill-luck gets just 
The copper couch and one clear nice 

Cool squirt of water o'er your bust, 
The right thing to extinguish lust 1 

VII 

It's wiser being good than bad ; 

It's safer being meek than fierce : 
It's fitter being sane than mad. 

My own hope is, a sun will pierce 
The thickest cloud earth ever stretched ; 

That, after Last, returns the First, 
Though a wide compass round be fetched ; 

That what began best, can't end worst. 
Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst. 

The poem Rephan, the title of which was taken 
from the Book of Acts, has the same pleasant teach- 
ing we find in the play by Ludwig Fulda, called 
Schlaraffenland, published in 1899. In this drama, 
a boy, ragged, cold, and chronically hungry, falls 
asleep in a miserable room, and dreams that he is in 



364 BROWNING 

a country of unalloyed delight. Broiled chickens 
fly slowly by, easy to clutch and devour : expensive 
wardrobes await his immediate pleasure, and every 
conceivable wish is instantly and completely fulfilled. 
For a short time the boy is in ecstasies of joy : then 
the absence of effort, of counterbalancing privation, 
begins to make his heart dull : finally the paradise be- 
comes so intolerable that he wakes with a scream — 
w^akes in a dark, cold room, wakes in rags with his 
belly empty: and wakes in rapture at finding the 
good old earth of struggle and toil around him. 

Contentment is stagnation : development is happi- 
ness. The mystery of life, its uncertainty, its joys 
paid for by effort, these make human existence 
worth while. 

Browning delights to prove that the popular long- 
ing for static happiness would result in misery : that 
the sharp sides of life sting us into the real joy of 
living. He loves to take popular proverbs, which 
sum up the unconscious pessimism of humanity, and 
then show how false they are to fact. For example, 
we hear every day the expression, "No rose without 
a thorn," and we know very well what is meant. In 
The Ring and the Book, Browning says 

So a thorn comes to the aid of and completes the rose. 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 365 

REPHAN 

1889 

How I lived, ere my human life began 

In this world of yours, — like you, made man, — 

When my home was the Star of my God Rephan? 

Come then around me, close about. 
World-weary earth-born ones I Darkest doubt 
Or deepest despondency keeps you out? 

Nowise I Before a word I speak, 

Let my circle embrace your worn, your weak, 

Brow- furrowed old age, youth's hollow cheek— ^ 

Diseased in the body, sick in soul. 

Pinched poverty, satiate wealth, — your whole 

Array of despairs ! Have I read the roll? 

All here ? Attend, perpend ! O Star 
Of my God Rephan, what wonders are 
In thy brilliance fugitive, faint and far I 

Far from me, native to thy realm, 

Who shared its perfections which o'erwhelm 

Mind to conceive. Let drift the helm. 

Let drive the sail, dare unconfined 

Embark for the vastitude, O Mind, 

Of an absolute bliss ! Leave earth behind! 

Here, by extremes, at a mean you guess : 
There, all's at most — not more, not less : 
Nowhere deficiency nor excess. 

No want — whatever should be, is now : 

No growth — that's change, and change comes — how 

To royalty born with crown on brow ? 



366 BROWNING ^ 

Nothing begins — so needs to end : 
Where fell it short at first? Extend 
Only the same, no change can mend ! 

I use your language : mine — no word 

Of its wealth would help who spoke, who heard, 

To a gleam of intelligence. None preferred, 

None felt distaste when better and worse 
Were uncontrastable : bless or curse 
What — in that uniform universe? 

Can your world's phrase, your sense of things 
Forth-figure the Star of my God? No springs, 
No winters throughout its space. Time brings 

No hope, no fear : as to-day, shall be 
To-morrow : advance or retreat need we 
At our stand-still through eternity? 

All happy : needs must we so have been, 
Since who could be otherwise? All serene: 
What dark was to banish, what light to screen? 

Earth's rose is a bud that's checked or grows 
As beams may encourage or blasts oppose : 
Our hves leapt forth, each a full-orbed rose — 

Each rose sole rose in a sphere that spread 
Above and below and around — rose-red : 
No fellowship, each for itself instead. 

One better than I — would prove I lacked 
Somewhat: one worse were a jarring fact 
Disturbing my faultlessly exact. 

How did it come to pass there lurked 
Somehow a seed of change that worked 
Obscure in my heart till perfection irked?—; 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 367 

Till out of its peace at length grew strife — 
Hopes, fears, loves, hates, — obscurely rife, — 
My life grown a-tremble to turn your life? 

Was it Thou, above all lights that are, 
Prime Potency, did Thy hand unbar 
The prison-gate of Rephan my Star ? 

In me did such potency wake a pulse 
Could trouble tranquillity that lulls 
Not lashes inertion till throes convulse 

Soul's quietude into discontent ? 

As when the completed rose bursts, rent 

By ardors till forth from its orb are sent 

New petals that mar — unmake the disc — 
Spoil rondure : what in it ran brave risk. 
Changed apathy's calm to strife, bright, brisk, 

Pushed simple to compound, sprang and spread 
Till, fresh-formed, facetted, floretted. 
The flower that slept woke a star instead? 

No mimic of Star Rephan ! How long 
I stagnated there where weak and strong, 
The wise and the foolish, right and wrong. 

Are merged alike in a neutral Best, 

Can I tell? No more than at whose behest 

The passion arose in my passive breast. 

And I yearned for no sameness but difference 
In thing and thing, that should shock my sense 
With a want of worth in them all, and thence 

Startle me up, by an Infinite 
Discovered above and below me — height 
And depth alike to attract my flight, 



368 BROWNING 

Repel my descent : by hate taught love. 
Oh, gain were indeed to see above 
Supremacy ever — to move, remove, 

Not reach — aspire yet never attain 

To the object aimed at! Scarce in vain,—: 

As each stage I left nor touched again. 

To suffer, did pangs bring the loved one bliss. 
Wring knowledge from ignorance, — just for this— ^ 
To add one drop to a love-abyss ! 

Enough : for you doubt, you hope, O men, 
You fear, you agonize, die : what then ? 
Is an end to your life's work out of ken? 

Have you no assurance that, earth at end, 
Wrong will prove right? Who made shall mend 
In the higher sphere to which yearnings tend? 

Why should I speak ? You divine the test. 
When the trouble grew in my pregnant breast 
A voice said "So wouldst thou strive, not rest? 

"Burn and not smoulder, win by worth. 
Not rest content with a wealth that's dearth ? 
Thou art past Rephan, thy place be Earth !" 

Browning was an optimist with his last breath. 
In the Prologue to Asolando, 2l conventional person 
is supposed to be addressing the poet : he says, "Of 
course your old age must be sad, because you have 
now lost all your youthful illusions. Once you 
looked on the earth with rose-colored spectacles, 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 369 

but now you see the naked and commonplace reality 
of the things you used to think so radiant.'' 

Browning's answer is significant, and the figure 
he uses wonderfully apt. Suppose you are going to 
travel in Europe : you go to the optician, and you ask 
for a first-rate magnifying-glass, that you may scan 
the ocean, and view the remote corners of cathe- 
drals. Now imagine him saying that he has for you 
something far better than that: he has a lovely 
kaleidoscope : apply your eye to the orifice, turn a lit- 
tle wheel, and you will behold all sorts of pretty col- 
ored rosettes. You would be naturally indignant. 
"Do you take me for a child to be amused with a rat- 
tle ? I don't want pretty colors : I want something 
that will bring the object, exactly as it is^ as near to 
my eyes as it can possibly be brought." 

Indeed, when one buys a glass for a telescope, 
if one has sufficient cash, one buys a glass made 
of crown and flint glass placed together, which 
destroys color, which produces what is called 
an achromatic lens. Now just as we judge of the 
value of a glass by its ability to bring things as they 
are within the range of our vision, so, says Brown- 
ing, old age is much better than youth. In age our old 
eyes become achromatic. The rosy illusions of youth 
vanish, thank God for it! The colors which we 



370 BROWNING 

imagined belonged to the object were in reality in 
our imperfect eyes — as we grow older these pretty 
colors disappear and we see what? We see life 
itself. Life is a greater and grander thing than any 
fool's illusion about it. The world of nature and 
man is infinitely more interesting and wonderful as 
it is than in any mistaken view of it. Therefore old 
age is better than youth. 

PROLOGUE 

1889 
"The Poet's age is sad : for why ? 

In youth, the natural world could show 
No common object but his eye 

At once involved with alien glow — 
His own soul's iris-bow. 

"And now a flower is just a flower : 

Man, bird, beast are but beast, bird, man- 
Simply themselves, uncinct by dower 

Of dyes which, when life's day began, 
Round each in glory ran." 

Friend, did you need an optic glass. 
Which were your choice ? A lens to drape 

In ruby, emerald, chrysopras, 
Each object — or reveal its shape 

Clear outlined, past escape, 

The naked very thing? — so clear 
That, when you had the chance to gaze. 

You found its inmost self appear 
Through outer seeming — truth ablaze. 

Not falsehood's fancy-haze? 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 371 

How many a year, my Asolo, 
Since — one step just from sea to land — • 

I found you, loved yet feared you so — 
For natural objects seemed to stand 

Palpably fire-clothed I No — 

No mastery of mine o'er these ! 

Terror with beauty, like the Bush 
Burning but unconsumed. Bend knees, 

Drop eyes to earthward I Language ? Tush I 
Silence 'tis awe decrees. 

And now ? The lambent flame is — where ? 

Lost from the naked world : earth, sky, 
Hill, vale, tree, flower, — Italia's rare 

O'er-running beauty crowds the eye — 
But flame ? The Bush is bare. 

Hill, vale, tree, flower — they stand distinct. 
Nature to know and name. What then ? 

A Voice spoke thence which straight unlinked 
Fancy from fact : see, all's in ken ; 

Has once my eyelid winked? 

No, for the purged ear apprehends 
Earth's import, not the eye late dazed : 

The Voice said "Call my works thy friends ! 
At Nature dost thou shrink amazed? 

God is it who transcends." 

It is an interesting and dramatic parallel in lit- 
erary history that Tennyson and Browning should 
each have published the last poem that appeared in 
his life-time in the same month of the same year, 
and that each farewell to the world should be so ex- 



Z72 BROWNING 

actly characteristic of the poetic genius and spiritual 
temperament of the writer. In December, 1889, 
came from the press Demeter and Other Poems, 
closing with Crossing the Bar — came also Asolando, 
closing with the Epilogue, Tennyson's lyric is ex- 
quisite in its tints of sunset, a serene close to a long 
and calmly beautiful day. It is the perfect tone of 
dignified departure, with the admonition to refrain 
from weeping, with the quiet assurance that all is 
well. Browning's Epilogue is full of excitement and 
strenuous rage: there is no hint of acquiescence; it 
is a wild charge with drum and trumpet on the hid- 
den foe. Firm in the faith, full of plans for the 
future, he looks not on the darkening night, but on 
to-morrow's sunrise. 

He tells us not to pity him. He is angry at the 
thought that people on the streets of London, when 
they hear of his death will say, "Poor Browning! 
He's gone ! How he loved life !" Rather he wishes 
that just as in this life when a friend met him in the 
city with a face lighted up by the pleasure of the 
sudden encounter, with a shout of hearty welcome — 
so now, when your thoughts perhaps turn to me, let 
it not be with sorrow or pity, but with eager recogni- 
tion. I shall be striving there as I strove here : greet 
me with a cheer ! 



BROWNING'S OPTIMISM 373 

EPILOGUE 

1889 

At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time, 

When you set your fancies free, 
Will they pass to where — by death, fools think, imprisoned— 
Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so, 
^Pityme? 

Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken ! 

What had I on earth to do 
With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly? 
Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel 
^Being — who ? 

One who never turned his back but marched breast forward. 

Never doubted clouds would break. 
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would 

triumph. 
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better. 
Sleep to wake. 

No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time 

Greet the unseen with a cheer ! 
Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be, 
"Strive and thrive 1" cry "Speed,-^fight on, fare ever 
There as here !" 



THE END 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Abt Vogler, 125, 303, 351-357. 

Addison, J., disgust for the Alps, 266. 

Andrea del Sarto, 206-216. 

Another Way of Love, 99. 

Apparent Failure, 360-363. 

Artemis Prologizes, 101. 

Asolando, Prologue and Epilogue, 368-373, 

Asolo : Browning's visits to, its place in his work, 8 ; last 

summer passed there, 26. 
Austin, Alfred, compared with F. Thompson, 69. 

Bad Dreams, 166, 168. 

Bells and Pomegranates, meaning of title, 101. 

Bishop Blougrain's Apologv, 46, 274, 

Bishop Orders His Tomb, The, 193-199. 

Blot in the 'Scutcheon, A, 7, 25, 83 169. 

Boy and the Angel, The, 99. 

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett: engagement, 8-10; her sonnets, 
12 ; described by her son, 23 ; her ill health, 24 ; invented 
name "Dramatic Lyric," 58; her assistance in R. Brown- 
ing's poems, 97. 

Browning, Robert: parentage and early life, 1-4; education, 
4-6; visit to Russia, 6; play-writing, 7; first visit to 
Italy, 7; marriage, 8-12; travels in Italy and lives at 
Paris, 22; domestic life in Florence described by Haw- 
thorne, 23; death, 27; personal habits, 28; peculiarities, 
29; piano-playing, 29, 30; enthusiasm, 30; friendship 
with Tennyson, 31 ; normality in appearance, 32 ; excel- 
lence in character, 32, 33; his theory of poetry, 34, ff; 
his sonnets, 74, 75; his favorite feature the brow, 141, 
142; fondness for yellow hair, 142; his "rejected lovers," 
143, ff. 

Browning, Robert Barrett : death at Asolo, 8 ; my conversation 
with, 23. 

Bryant, W. C, visits Browning, 23. 

Byron, Lord, lyrical power, 71. 

By the Fireside, 141. 

Caliban on Setebos, 326-339. 

Campion, T., his lyrical power compared with Donne's, 72, 

377 



378 INDEX 

Carlyle, T. : travels to Paris with tlie Brownings, 22; his 

smoking, 28. 
Cavalier Tunes, 110-114. 
Charles Avis on, 351. 
"Childe Roland," 22, 231-244, 302. 
Choate, J. H., his remark on old age, 340. 
Christmas-Eve, 25, 44, 52, 97, 98, 298. 
Cleon, 148, 216, 220-222. 
Clive, 287-289. 
Confessions, 163-165. 
Count Gismond, 100, 120, 142, 177-183. 
Cristina, 115-127. 

Death in the Desert, A, 125, 163, 298, 326. 

De Gustibus, 267, 268. 

Dis Aliter Visum, 120. 

Donne, J.: compared with Browning, 69; compared with 

Campion, 72. 
Dramatic Lyric, origin of name, 58. 
Dramatic Lyrics, 37, 98, 99, 100, 101. 
Dramatic Romances, 97, 98, 100, 101. 
Dramatis Personce, 23, 25, 97. 

Eliot, George, Daniel Deronda and My Last Duchess, 172. 

Emerson, R. W. : pie and optimism, 28; his opinion of Tenny- 
son's Ulysses, 99, 100. 

Epistle, An, Containing Strange Medical Experience of Kar- 
shish, 216-219, 222-231. 

Eurydice, 142. 

Evelyn Hope, 47, 120, 124, 130-132, 141, 142. 

*'Eyes Calm Beside Thee" 75. 

Face, A, 87. 

Fano: seldom visited, 322; scene of picture of Guardian 

Angel, 322. 
Fifine at the Fair: 29; Epilogue to, 88-90. 
Forster, J., his praise of Paracelsus, 7. 
Fra Lippo Lip pi, 22, 203-206. 
Fulda, L., his play Schlaraffenland compared with Rephan, 

363. 

Garden Fancies, Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis, 255, 259-261. 

Glove, The, 47, 246-255, 357. 

Goethe, doctrine of elective affinities, 116-118. 

Gold Hair, 142, 298. 

Grammarian's Funeral, A, 256-259, 262-266. 

Gray, T., early appreciation of mountain scenery, 267. 

Guardian Angel, The, 322-326. 



INDEX 379 

Hallam, A. H., home in Wimpole Street, 10. 

Hawthorne, N., visits Browning in Florence, 23. 

Holy Cross Day, 46. 

Home-Thoughts, from Abroad, 83-86, 100. 

Home-Thoughts, from the Sea, 83-86. 

How It Strikes a Contemporary, 50, 54. 

"How They Brought the Good News," 101, 139, 189-193. 

Ibsen, H. : an original genius, Z6, Z7 ; When We Dead Awaken, 

148; A Doll's House, 292. 
In a Balcony, 169. 

In a Gondola, 100, 120, 142, 154-156. 
Incident of the French Camp, 100, 139. 
Ivan Ivdnovitch, 7, 286, 287. 

James Lee's Wife, 67, 86. 

Jocoseria, Prologue to, 94. 

Johannes Agricola in Meditation, 103, 107-110. 

Jonson, B., his remarks on Donne, 69. 

Karshish (see Epistle, An). 

Keats, J. : prosody in Endymion, 41, 171 ; Bright Star, 71 ; his 

conception of beauty, 167; preface to Endymion, 295; 

his doctrine of beauty, 324. 
KipHng, R., allusions to Browning in Stalky and Co., 195. 

Laboratory, The, 199-203. 

Landor, W. S., his poetic tribute to Browning, 68. 

Lanier, S., his criticism of The Ring and the Book, Z7. 

La Saisias, Prologue to, 93. 

Last Ride Together, The, 46, 141, 146-154. 

LeMoyne, Sarah Cowell, her reading aloud Meeting at Night, 

133, 134. 
Lessing, G. E., his remark about truth, 148. 
Longfellow, H. W. : a better sonneteer than either Tennyson 

or Browning, 74; Paul Revere's Ride compared with 

"Hozv They Brought," etc., 189. 
Lost Leader, The, 100, 110, 114, 144. 
Lost Mistress, The, 144, 149. 
Love Among the Ruins, 42, 46, 142, 156-161. 
Lover's Quarrel, A, 99. 
Luria, 70, 97. 

Macbeth: German translation of, 47; pessimistic speech by, 

102, 103. 
Macready, W. C., relations with Browning, 7. 
Maeterlinck, M, : scene in Monna Vanna taken from Luria, 

70; his praise of Browning's poetry, 70. 



380 INDEX 

Master H agues of Saxc-Gotha, 351. 

Meeting at Night, 59, 132-140. 

Men and Women, 22, 25, 96, 97, 98, 99. 

Mesmerism, 99. 

Mill, J. S., his opinion of Pauline, 73. 

Muleykeh, 289, 290. 

My Last Duchess, 101, 170-177, 186. 

My Star, 165, 167. 

Nationality in Drinks, 98. 

Old Pictures in Florence, 320-322. 

Omar Khayyam, his figure of the Potter compared with 

Browning's, 342. 
One Way of Love, 144, 145, 149. 
One Word More, 13, 14, 15-21. 

Pacchiarotto : 61; Epilogue to, 63, 70; Prologue to, 92. 

Paracelsus, 7, 25, 76-79, 123, 128-130. 

Parting at Morning (see Meeting at Night). 

Pauline, 6, 24, 25, 37, 42, 47, 73. 84, 294, 296. 

Pippa Passes, 8, 25, 61, 67, 80-83, 102, 135. 

Pope: popularity of Essay on Man, 34; his prosody compared 

with that of Keats, 171. 
Porphyria's Lover, 103-107. 
Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, 96. 
Prospice, 357-360. 

Rahhi Ben Ezra, 62, 122, 326, 339-351. 

Rephan, Z63-Z()d>. 

Respectability, 161-163. 

Reverie, 297. 

Ring and the Book, The,2S, 37, 45. 59, 60, 62, 97, 116, 364. 

Rossetti, D. G. : draws picture of Tennyson, 22 ; his opinion of 

Pauline, 73, 74. 
Rossetti, W. M., meets the Brownings and the Tennysons, 22. 
Rudel to the Lady of Tripoli, 101. 
Ruskin, J., his remark on The Bishop Orders His Tomb, 193, 

194. 

Saul, 98, 298-320. 

Schiller, F. : his poem Der Handschuh, 246; his poem Das 
Ideal und das Leben, 341. 

Schopenhauer, A. : father's financial help similar to Brown- 
ing's, 3 ; his late-coming fame similar to Browning's, 24 ; 
his remark on Rafael's St. Cecilia, 208. 

Schumann, R. and Mrs., presentation to the Scandinavian 
king, 26. 



INDEX 381 

Shakespeare, W., Browning declares him to be the supreme 

poet, 44. 
Sharp, Vv., characterization of SordeUo, 66. 
Shelley, P. B. : his vegetarianism imitated by Browning, 27; 

his lyrical power, 71. 
Sihrandus Schafnaburgensis (see Garden Fancies). 
Sludge (Mr.) the Medium, 46, 133. 
Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister, 183-189. 
Soul's Tragedy, A, 97, 98. 
SordeUo, 8, 66, 67. 

Statue and the Bust, The, 120, 141, 142, 272-285. 
Stedman (mother of the poet, E. C), her remarks on the 

health of Mrs. Browning in Florence, 24. 
Sunimum Bonum, 166, 168. 

Tennyson, A.: reading aloud from Maud, 22; Browning's letter 
to him, 31 ; a genius for adaptation, 36; wrote to please 
critics, 39 ; compared with Browning, 65 ; his lyrical 
power, 71 ; his lyrics compared with Browning's 72 ; 
wrote no good sonnets, 74; Lotos-Eaters, 76; Ulysses, 
99; Crossing the Bar, 102; St. Agnes' Eve compared 
with Johannes Agricola, 110; Locksley Hall, 119; his 
"rejected lovers" compared with Browning's, 143; his 
criticism of The Laboratory, 200; Crossing the Bar 
compared with Epilogue to Asolando, 372. 

Thackeray, Vanity Fair, 302. 

Thompson, P., his poetry compared with Austin's, 69. 

Time's Revenges, 143. 

Toccata of Galuppi's, A, 142, 351. 

Transcendentalism, 48, 52, 115. 

Twins, The, 61, 62. 

Two Poets of Croisic, the Epilogue to, 91. 

Up at a Villa — Down in the City, 266-272. 

Wagner, R. : his originality, 36, 37 ; his slow-coming fame, 40 ; 

his operas, 64. 
Which, 290-293. 
Wister, O., criticism of Browning's poetry in his novel The 

Virginian, 135, 138, 139, 191. 
Wordsworth, W. : served as model for The Lost Leader, 110; 

his sincere love of the country, 267. 

Youth and Art, 120. 



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